Recommended Minimum Android App SDK

Question

I am making an android app, and am wondering what the industry\'s thoughts are on supporting older android versions like GingerBread and FroYo. Should a developer like me take t

Answer 1

For the record - 2020 April

If you look at the comments, they usually set the min level to 19 since years ago. Right now, it is nonsense (also, some comments are obsolete).

We are looked at the statistics of Google, and they say, "+10% of the devices are KitKat or lower. However, it's tough (if any) to find a company that sells phones for Kitkat.

So, why Kitkat 19 is still popular? Because old smartphones simply don't go away (and they aren't updated).

Then, technically 10% of the market uses Kitkat or lower but that information is mostly useless

From then 10%, how many of them will install your application? Or any new application?. I know a lot of people that are happy with their old-and-rusty phone, but they only use for making calls and watch youtube/browser internet. So, usually, the lower 10% is not part of our target market or the target market of anybody.

Twitter said about it:

• minSdkVersion · Nov 7, 2016 19
• minSdkVersion Apr 23, 2018 21
• minSdkVersion Dec 9, 2019 23

When Twitter says API=23, then Twitter is ignoring 25% of the market. It is a huge number. But again, this number means nothing without analysis. Twitter decided that this number is moot because, of the 25% of the users that use an old phone, they are not really in its market share, i.e., people that don't use Twitter on their phones using an application.

So, for the record and as for April 2020.

• API = 19 who are you pleasing? Remember, we are 4 years later in comparison with Twitter.
• API = 21 is a moderated number.
• API = 23 sounds like a rational number.

For example, I run a windows server, and the default browser is Internet Explorer. Do you know how Internet Explorer works in the real world? It doesn't!. It works with google and a few sites, but everything else is broken. And still, developers "support" internet explorer because of the non-existence 6.97% market share (the users exist, but they are not everybody users but intranet users).

Now, if your application is for a government/public interest, then we should stick with the standard or official procedure, and sometimes it could be around API 15 or 16.