As I understand it (and I might be wrong, I'm just beginning to learn mobile dev) it's only for you, as a developer — i.e. you must use the latest tools, like A

As I understand it (and I might be wrong, I'm just beginning to learn mobile dev) it's only for you, as a developer — i.e. you must use the latest tools, like Apple enforces the use of the latest Xcode version. Note that for new apps this has been effective since August 1, 2019. November 1 is for app updates. Your app can still target any version it wants; but this is to ensure that you'll implement features required for API level 28 (Android 9), so that users on a recent device can benefit from those. Nothing more, nothing less. Thus of course we must still support Oreo and before, otherwise we'd cut >85% of the user base... TL;DR: title-bait, misleading, not even accurate (missing "for app updates").