Yes, the Pixel 7 Pro may be the mobile with the best camera in the world and that both seventh generation models are the ones that best integrate with Android. Nevertheless, Google’s new mobiles are not perfect and his first problem has already come to light.
Some users have reported that their Google Pixel 7 won’t let you install some apps. Is it happening to you too? What is this about? The mystery has already been solved and the truth is that it cannot be considered an error, but rather a forced evolution.
The Google Pixel 7 are unable to install 32-bit applications
Through different threads on Twitter, Reddit, Google community forums and other platforms, different users have reported that their Pixel 7 has problems installing certain apps. Most of the time the error occurs with old applicationsbut there is already an answer to what happens.
Mishaal Rahman, editor at development firm Esper, revealed that The Google Pixel 7 is not compatible with applications that use 32-bit instructions. To test his theory, Rahman tried to install multiple 32-bit apps on a Pixel 7, all of which threw an error during the process. He did the same with his 64-bit versions and the installation did succeed.
To dig deeper and find the underlying reason, Rahman followed the process that the Pixel 7 and Android 13 followed to install the famous game Flappy Birds, which is only available in 32 Bits. To his surprise, the Pixel 7 ran a 64-bit Zygote, instead of a 32-bit one, as might be expected.
Running the ‘getprop ro.zygote’ instruction the Pixel 7 returned ‘zygote64’. On a Pixel 6 and Galaxy S22 Ultra, where there were no installation issues, the output was ‘zygote64_32’. In fact, the latter would be normal, because a 32-bit app is being installed. And if you wonder, what is a zygote? It is a system process that forks app processes.
The Pixel 7 would be the first Android phones without support for 32-bit instructions
However, Why does this happen? It is something curious, but at the same time quite logical. curious, because the Google Tensor G2 uses the same cores and instructions as the Tensor G1 of the Pixel 6. That is, it is a chip compatible with 32-bit instructions, contrary to the new ARMv9 CPUs of 2023 that will be exclusively 64-bit.
At the same time, though, it’s a pretty logical move. Why? Google has been fighting for a long time to unsubscribe 32-bit apps on Android. Android support for 64-bit instructions was added in Android 5 Lollipop. Then, since 2019 it became mandatory to launch apps in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Finally, from August 2021, Google prohibited the development of 32-bit apps on Android.
The goal, in principle, was to remove 32-bit support in Android 12, but it did not happen in that version, nor in Android 13. It may be that for Android 14 it will become a reality, something that would go hand in hand with the loss of compatibility with ARM hardware.
How to install 32-bit applications on Pixel 7? Looking for 64-bit versions
As there is no compatibility of the Pixel 7 with 32-bit applications, it will simply be impossible to install this type of application. Therefore, your only exits are the following: search for the 64-bit version of that application or directly move from it.
It can be a bit annoying, but the only way that an app does not have a 64-bit version is if it has not been updated since 2019. In that case, we would be talking about a really old and outdated app you probably have better alternatives on the play store.
By the way, if you don’t know how to check if an app is 32 or 64 bit, you can use AppChecker to check it. This tool will not only tell you what instructions the app you are trying to install uses, but also the minimum version of the system that you require and a lot of additional information.
