What is armv7s?

Question

This seems to be a new option in newer XCode - instead of "armv6 armv7" under Valid architectures I now see "armv7 armv7s". What is armv7s and do I need to build for it as well as armv7?

is it a 32 or 64 bit architecture ? – Elstine P Jun 29 '17 at 11:08 — Elstine P, Jun 29 '17 at 11:08
@ElstineP armv7s is 32bit, armv8 and arm64 are 64bit – gilm Mar 19 '19 at 12:27 — gilm, Mar 19 '19 at 12:27

score 42 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 24 '12 at 16:51

42

The iPhone 5 will ship with and only run iOS 6.0. To coincide with the launch of iOS 6.0, Apple has seeded developers with a newer version of its development tools. Xcode 4.5 makes two major changes: it drops support for the ARMv6 ISA (used by the ARM11 core in the iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G), keeps support for ARMv7 (used by modern ARM cores) and it adds support for a new architecture target designed to support the new A6 SoC: armv7s.

answered Sep 24 '12 at 16:51

venkatKA

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Is using armv7s required to support the new iPhone 5? Is there anyway to support armv6 and armv7s? – brynbodayle Sep 25 '12 at 18:28
Dropping hardware support is not usual. Xcode 4.5 doesn't support older iOs versions. You should be able to submit an updated binary with armv7 and armv7s. – venkatKA Sep 26 '12 at 00:28
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The way I understand it armv7s is backward compatible with armv7, but including an armv7s slice might improve performance in some cases because the compiler can use the new instructions added in that instruction set (see http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2012/09/apple-a6/). Whether these speed-ups are significant depends on the code being compiled (math-heavy libraries could see good gains). – Patrick Pijnappel Feb 18 '14 at 00:01

score 42 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '12 at 19:13

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You do not have to build for armv7s to add support for the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 can run armv7 compiled code as well. My app has just been submitted to the store and it is build on armv7 only and working perfect!

answered Sep 25 '12 at 19:13

Ben Groot

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Is this true? Isn't armv7s specifically there for the A6 processor, which runs in the iPhone 5? – jmstone617 Oct 05 '12 at 15:50
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@jmstone Yes, we use some static libraries that are not yet compiled for armv7s so we disabled it for now. Works perfect on an iPhone 5. – Chris Wagner Oct 06 '12 at 00:31

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 24 '12 at 16:48

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armv7s is the architecture of the A6 processor in the iPhone 5. And yes, you need to include this as well. With the latest version of Xcode, support for armv6 is dropped.

answered Sep 24 '12 at 16:48

marcelnijman

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Xcode 4.5 does not support armv6, so if you are supporting armv7s you are using a compiler that doesn't really want to support armv6. – Kendall Helmstetter Gelner Sep 24 '12 at 16:50
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you do not "need to include" armv7s as Ben Groot said. – colin lamarre Oct 14 '13 at 17:38
is it 32 or 64 bit support ? – Elstine P Jun 29 '17 at 11:11

What is armv7s?

3 Answers3

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