Can I enable multidex in Android debug build only?

Question

Dears, I read in many blog posts that multidex apps startup is slower than normal apps. My app uses a lot of libraries that exceed 64k methods so I use multidex. But when I use proguard in release build, the final apk becomes less than 64k methods

So My question is: Can I enable multidex in Android debug build only so I don't have runtime error? and disable multi dex in release build as I don't need it?

If yes, how ?

If No, Is Android smart enough to speedup startup as it should recognize that app didn't exceed 64k even if it is multi dex app ?

Answer 1

Yes, you can. When you declare your buildTypes include multidex only for debug:

buildTypes {
    release {
        multiDexEnabled false
    }
    debug {
        multiDexEnabled true
    }
}

Answer 2

Instead of enabling multidex only for debug, you can change your min sdk version to 21 only for debug so gradle can speed up dexing with ART:

android {
    productFlavors {
        // Define separate dev and prod product flavors.
        dev {
            // dev utilizes minSDKVersion = 21 to allow the Android gradle plugin
            // to pre-dex each module and produce an APK that can be tested on
            // Android Lollipop without time consuming dex merging processes.
            minSdkVersion 21
        }
        prod {
            // The actual minSdkVersion for the application.
            minSdkVersion 14
        }
    }
          ...
    buildTypes {
        release {
            runProguard true
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'),
                                                 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}
dependencies {
  compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.0'
}

http://developer.android.com/tools/building/multidex.html