Forward or Backward Compatibility in Android?

Question

I would like to know whether the Android provides any sort of compatibility i.e either forward or backward. It means as in Blackberry if develop an Application with JDE 4.2

Answer 1

That's not what "forwards compatibility" means. You are thinking of "backwards compatibility". "Backwards compatibility" means that new versions of the platform (i.e. Android) will still run old software developed against an older version of the platform. "Forwards compatibility" is the precise converse -- older software developed against an older version of the platform will still be able to leverage new features of the new platform.

An example of backwards compatibility is that they rename one of the methods in ICS but still implement a deprecated version of the old method and have it forward to the new implementation.

While backwards compatibility is almost always guaranteed, forwards compatibility is only guaranteed in certain scenarios. An example of forward compatibility would be a situatation where they implement a new feature in the OS (for example, "pinch to zoom") and applications written before that feature existed are still able to enjoy this feature.