Android is 64-bit on the Nexus 7

[bawboh86]

I'm not sure if anyone has ever cared to look into this, but I happened to be goofing around and click a "Get Flash Player" link on my Nexus 7. How interesting to see this message telling me that I'm running a 64-bit version of Linux (of which Android is based off).

I know it really doesn't mean much either here nor there, but I just thought it interesting. At least this means we could see more than 4GB of RAM in our phones and tablets some day.

Anyone else see anything else out there confirming this interesting (if somewhat useless) find?

 

[phillytim]

Quite interesting...isn't the N7's Tegra3 CPU only a 32-bit processor?

 

[bawboh86]

That seems to be what all my research has been telling me. I wonder at what it is that Adobe is looking to decide what the OS version is. Without that information, I have no idea WHY I got the results I did.

 

[mkiker2089]

Aren't all multi core systems 64 bit? If not adobe could be assuming they are since Windows usually is.

Detecting Linux however makes me wonder what it's looking at as well. Most sites no only know I'm on android but which version. Actually when I browse there it opens the Google play store.

 

[bawboh86]

I think some of the earlier multi-core Intels were still 32bit. As for the Linux, well, this was for their desktop application, and Android is a Linux based product (when I REALLY need something, I open a shell and type the command myself).

I know there are ways of checking what the default integer max value is (usually, 64 bit systems default an int declaration to "long" and 32 bit stick with a 32 bit integer), but that method is flawed as I have found out. I know that Java gives a check to see what bit version your JVM is running, but I haven't tried setting anything up to see what that returns. Actually, I'm going to write a quick app and see if that check would work. I'll post my findings later.

 

[bawboh86]

I forgot to mention, a flaw in Adobe checking cores is that you can have a quadcore, 64 bit processor, but still run a 32 bit OS. That's not entirely uncommon, although it seems to be going that way with the push to move from XP and Vista to Windows 7 and 8.

 

[bawboh86]

Okay, so it took a bit longer than I wanted because of some updates I needed to make, but here's the answer:

I don't think so. It says "armV71" (as you can see in the screenshot) and my understand is that no, that architecture is not 64bit (at least, my Google searches have come up with nothing). The code I used was a simple Java System call: System.getProperty("os.arch"); Yes, I know the screenshot shows it running in a VM, but I ran it on my Nexus and got the same information.

Does anyone have any input on this?

 

[mkiker2089]

My understanding was, and I could be wrong, is that with multi core units you can have 64 bit regardless of each processor since the system could open another one for the other 32 bits. Hence memory being in matched banks. That is windows however. The nexus is VERY different as it has 5 cores and spends most of it's time as a single core.

 

[bawboh86]

It's also an ARM architecture, which I finally found something on v7 (not quite v71, but the Nexus 7 uses an ARM v7). ARM is a specialized RISC (reduced instruction set computer). It can only handle 32bits of memory at a time, meaning it's 32bit. From what I can tell, the not the next version of Tegra, but the one after should start handling 64 bit instruction sets.

The initial multi-core processors did allow for 64 bits of memory to be read at once because they had more than one core able to read 32 bit at a time, but the technology has advanced to where I believe each core can pull in 64 bits at a time, especially with the newer Intels that are hyper-threading in each core (for those of you that don't know, hyper-threading is a way for a single core to compute two threads at once, thus achieving a multicore effect with a single core).

Any who, in short, the Nexus 7 is a 32 bit OS and I think that Adobe just wasn't prepared for something different to check their site. I'd bet they're seeing if a check of the computer's architecture shows up at "x86" and if not, it's 64 bit, but I'm not sure. Sorry for rambling.

 

[phillytim]

No worries, bawboh, the info you provided is great! Thanks!

 

[retsaw]

What is most likely is that you have "request desktop site" checked in Chrome, and then Chrome is lying to websites about the system it is running on in its user agent string in order to be served the regular desktop site.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[bawboh86]

That is much more likely. I hadn't even thought about that angle. Yes, I did have that checked, as I prefer viewing Desktop sites on my tablet (not so much my phone, unless it's DeviantArt, I hate their mobile site).