Debug vs release builds

[Roman Evstifeev]

Hi. I used p4a to build apk. The resulting build has "debug" in tis name and made me wondering if it is not performant enough for release. I also noticed that in the final steps it launches "and debug".
Can I can create a "release" version of apk somehow?

I noticed that a simple helloworld app takes about 5 seconds to launch on my quad-core mt6582 with 1G RAM. Is it ok?

I used following commands to build:

p4a create --dist_name=testpygame --bootstrap=pygame --requirements=pygame,python2,kivy,pil

p4a apk --private /home/z/pproj/mykivy/ --package=org.spbelect.myy --name="myy" --version=0.8 --dist-name testpygame

[Alexander Taylor]

I think the main (only?) difference with debug builds is that they are not signed with your own key, but with a generic debug key. This makes them quick and easy to generate without worrying about keychain stuff, but you need to generate a release build to submit to e.g. the Play store, and it's good practice for other distribution.

I'm afraid that creating a release build probably won't improve your performance at all, but you can try it easily enough, you just have to sign the apk manually (see https://kivy.org/docs/guide/packaging-android.html#release-on-the-market or the p4a doc)