Retrieving Android API version programmatically

Question

Is there any way to get the API version that the phone is currently running?

Answer 1

Taking into account all said, here is the code I use for detecting if device has Froyo or newer Android OS (2.2+):

public static boolean froyoOrNewer() {
    // SDK_INT is introduced in 1.6 (API Level 4) so code referencing that would fail
    // Also we can't use SDK_INT since some modified ROMs play around with this value, RELEASE is most versatile variable
    if (android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("1.") ||
        android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("2.0") ||
        android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("2.1"))
        return false;

    return true;
}

Obviously, you can modify that if condition to take into account 1.0 & 1.5 versions of Android in case you need generic checker. You will probably end up with something like this:

// returns true if current Android OS on device is >= verCode 
public static boolean androidMinimum(int verCode) {
    if (android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("1.0"))
        return verCode == 1;
    else if (android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("1.1")) {
        return verCode <= 2;
    } else if (android.os.Build.VERSION.RELEASE.startsWith("1.5")) {
        return verCode <= 3;
    } else {
        return android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= verCode;
    }
}

Let me know if code is not working for you.