[lartomar2002]

Got my Nexus 9 today and now I am sad, there is no KODI for it. Is it in the works? From what I hear all of its files are on the github.

[lrusak]

I didn't even know that the Nexus 9 has a 64bit ARM cpu. The Nexus 6 is still a 32bit ARM cpu.

http://android-developers.blogspot.ca/20...6-and.html

[Koying]

Did you try sideloading Kodi and it doesn't work, or are you only complaining that Kodi is not in the play store?

[chikkensoop]

He's complaining it won't work. Most android devices seem to be snapdragon based processors (NEON), whereas the new nexus 9 is a new 64 bit Tegra based cpu. Kodi won't even start on the Nexus 9.

[Hedda]

Maybe the Kodi team developers could utilize Testdroid together with some test automation tools/script or something for regression testing and quality assurance somehow?

http://testdroid.com/value

In related news Testdroid now offer developer access to access to NVIDIA Tegra K1 devices in its testing service

http://testdroid.com/testdroid/8450/test...s-on-cloud

Perhaps if you ask them then Testdroid might even be willing to sponsor the XBMC Foundation with a such service?

He's complaining it won't work. Most android devices seem to be snapdragon based processors (NEON), whereas the new nexus 9 is a new 64 bit Tegra based cpu. Kodi won't even start on the Nexus 9.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 features NEON extension, so surely NEON instruction set shuld have nothing to do with his issues.

Besides, aren't "Project Denver" for 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 is suppose to make it backwards compatible with 32-bit apps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Tegra_K1

Nvidia’s Tegra K1 (code-named Logan) features an ARM Cortex general-purpose or Nvidia's 64-bit Project Denver processing unit as well as a Kepler graphics processing unit with support for general-purpose processing on GPU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver

Project Denver is the codename of a microarchitecture designed by Nvidia that implements the ARMv8-A 64/32-bit instruction sets using a combination of simple hardware decoder and software-based binary translation (dynamic recompilation) where "Denver's binary translation layer runs in software.

The existence of Project Denver was revealed at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.[8] In a March 4, 2011 Q&A article CEO Jen-Hsun Huang revealed that Project Denver is a five year 64-bit ARMv8-A architecture CPU development on which hundreds of engineers had already worked for three and half years and which also has 32-bit ARM instruction set (ARMv7) backward compatibility.[9] Project Denver was started in Stexar company (Colorado) as an x86-compatible processor using binary translation like in Transmeta's projects. Stexar was acquired by Nvidia in 2006.

[Martijn]

Maybe the Kodi team developers could utilize Testdroid together with some test automation tools/script or something for regression testing and quality assurance somehow?

http://testdroid.com/value

which is useless in our case as we develop in C or C++ and crossplatform. Also not gonna pay for some random test tool

[RockerC]

I didn't even know that the Nexus 9 has a 64bit ARM cpu. The Nexus 6 is still a 32bit ARM cpu.

http://android-developers.blogspot.ca/20...6-and.html

Ah nice, Katherine Kuan have posted a best practices guide on how to get apps ready for Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Android Developers Blog

http://android-developers.blogspot.ca/20...6-and.html

This best practices guide seem to go through the small basic things that should to be modified to show up nicely in Google Play store too.


Checklist summary:

Check your assets. Nexus 6 has a quantized density of 560 dpi, which falls in between the xxhdpi and xxxhdpi primary density buckets. For the Nexus 6, the platform will scale down xxxhdpi assets, but if those aren’t available, then it will scale up xxhdpi assets. The Nexus 9 is a premium 8.9” tablet with a screen size of 2048 x 1536 pixels (288 ppi), which translates to 1024 x 768 dip. This is a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is unique compared to earlier tablets. The Nexus 9 falls into the xhdpi density bucket, and you should already have assets in the drawable-xhdpi folder.

Provide at least an xxxhdpi app icon because devices can display large app icons on the launcher. It’s best practice to place your app icons in mipmap- folders (not the drawable- folders) because they are used at resolutions different from the device’s current density. For example, an xxxhdpi app icon can be used on the launcher for an xxhdpi device.

Choosing to add xxxhdpi versions for the rest of your assets will provide a sharper visual experience on the Nexus 6, but does increase apk size, so you should make an appropriate decision for your app.

Make sure you are not filtered on Google Play. If you are using the <compatible-screens> element in the AndroidManifest.xml file, you should stop using it because it’s not scalable to re-compile and publish your app each time new devices come out. However, if you must use it, make sure to update the manifest to add the configuration for these devices (by screen size and density). Otherwise your app may be excluded from Google Play search results on these devices.

Enable NDK apps for 64-bit. The Nexus 9 runs on a 64-bit Dual Core processor, which makes it the first Android device to ship with a 64-bit ARM instruction set. Support for 64-bit processors was just added in Android 5.0, so if you have an NDK app, enable it by updating the APP_ABI value in your Application.mk file:

APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a arm64-v8a x86 x86_64 mips mips64

Update your hardware keyboard support. The Nexus 9 Keyboard Folio will be available as an accessory in Google Play. It’s very important that you don’t lock your app to a single orientation. The Nexus 9’s natural orientation is portrait mode, while it’s used in landscape mode with the keyboard. If you lock to the device’s natural orientation, the app may appear sideways for devices with keyboards. Users should be able to navigate around the main content of the app with the keyboard, while relying on touch input or keyboard shortcuts for toolbar actions and button bars. Therefore, ensure that your app has proper keyboard navigation and shortcuts for primary actions.

[Koying]

All of this is really nice, but doesn't answer the question: Has someone actually tried to launch Kodi on Nexus 9?
If K1 64bits has NEON, and assuming it's not a platform of its own, I'm kind of assuming it should work.

[Martijn]

Enable NDK apps for 64-bit. The Nexus 9 runs on a 64-bit Dual Core processor, which makes it the first Android device to ship with a 64-bit ARM instruction set. Support for 64-bit processors was just added in Android 5.0, so if you have an NDK app, enable it by updating the APP_ABI value in your Application.mk file:

APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a arm64-v8a x86 x86_64 mips mips64

this should be the only interesting part

[Koying]

Yes, in in our case, that'd mean another jenkins job, another package, ... Same as for x86

[Martijn]

luckily droid building is quite fast so shouldn't be an issue. We can also extend the VM for that as we now moved windows to another machine

[chikkensoop]

All of this is really nice, but doesn't answer the question: Has someone actually tried to launch Kodi on Nexus 9?
If K1 64bits has NEON, and assuming it's not a platform of its own, I'm kind of assuming it should work.

As I mentioned in my post, the version available from kodi.tv won't even start on the Nexus 9, the error that is displayed is:

'This XBMC package is not compatible with your device (NEON). Please check the XBMC Android wiki for more information'

Hope this helps

[Koying]

Yep, it does. Probably not fixable until someone with a Tegra K1 64 bits gets his hands dirty, though...

[Memphiz]

I really doubt that android 5.0 on 64bit arm is not able to run 32bit ndk apps. This would be a horror scenario. Sounds more like our precheck fails to detect that cpu as valid somehow no?

Something around:

https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...va.in#L620

[wsnipex]

possibly, but someone still needs to verify this on the actual hardware