Installing Polaroid Cube app onto a OnePlus 12 with Android 14

Question

I recently bought a (currently discontinued) Polaroid Cube+ off eBay and I want to be able to use all its features.

The instruction manual and other places mention there is an app (package name com.polaroid.cube), but it seems to have been removed some years ago. (Latest version I can find is from 2017, v2.3.8.)

I want to install the Polaroid Cube app onto my OnePlus 12 with Android 14, but when trying to install (by running the APK or via adb install --bypass-low-target-sdk-block) it says that it is not compatible with my device. It seems that the architectures don't match (armeabi-v7a, armeabi vs arm64; the specific error from adb is INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS).

Is there a way of installing this app onto my OnePlus 12? Ideally it should not involve rooting, as I have some work-related 2FA associated to my phone that need it to be unrooted. In addition, I don't have any older phones to install the app onto; the goal is to install this ancient app onto my modern Android phone.

Answer 1

If GSM Arena's page on the OnePlus 12 is correct, it can only run ARM64 native code: the processor cores in its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC can't run in 32-bit mode. For more about this, see here.

If the app uses 32-bit native code, which seems to be the case from the INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS error, then you are stuck: your 'phone can't run that code. Rooting would not help at all, your hardware can't do it.

It isn't impossible, in principle, for someone to write an emulator to run 32-bit Android native libraries on 64-bit Android, but I don't know of it being done, and it would be complicated.

Some Xiaomi devices come with the "Tango" binary translator which allows them to run 32-bit native code, but that has to be integrated into Android when the OS is built.

The easiest solution would be to acquire a 'phone that can run 32-bit native code. Those are still around, but they won't be forever.