6 ms·

Why it’s time to support only Android 4.0 and above

28 points by purpl3p3rs0n 13y ago

MAGZine 13y ago
I feel that supporting Android 2.3 at this time is roughly equivalent to supporting IE6. For the majority of people, just stop targeting 2.3 support as a requirement. Perhaps it'll net you some additional marketshare in emerging markets, but for the most part, ≥API14 is ubiquitous to a point where this is a sensible decision.
- atlanticus 13y ago
  Not supporting IE6 will cost you lucrative enterprise dollars, Android 2.3, while popular, is not nearly as profitable.
  - edwintorok 13y ago
    There is a big difference though. People who run IE6 would be usually capable of running some more recent browser, but for various reasons choose not to. People who are stuck with Android 2.x are stuck because their hardware can't support newer versions of Android (well there are various custom ROMs that "work" with various degree of success on older devices, but not really in a usable form).
    - atlanticus 13y ago
      People running IE6 are doing it because their IT department won't let them upgrade.
      - maaku 13y ago
        People running Android 2.3 are doing it because their carrier won't let them upgrade.
  - MAGZine 13y ago
    There are certain circumstances where you want to support ie6, though not many outside enterprisey things. ie6 has lost widespread support. Heck, google stopped supporting it three years ago
- nawitus 13y ago
  <API14 is 30.8% of the user base. http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html IE6 is 4.9% http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/ They're completely different.
  - richkz 13y ago
    Perhaps worth looking at the drill down based on country/language...
  - Zikes 13y ago
    I'm no Android developer, but with as many API versions I know of for Android it's not hard to imagine that the development experience is very similar. Supporting <API14 may cost more in development and support than the potential customer base gain, especially if the target market is the sort that would have newer devices.
  - jere 13y ago
    Yea, I think that's a pretty bad comparison. If you look at the IE graph you posted, it's less than 1% in the US. Another graph that might make things easier to visualize (the blue and above is who we're talking about abandoning): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Android-dist-by-dessert.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Android-dist-by-dessert.pn...
    - MAGZine 13y ago
      I will grant that it is a bad comparison. But, not for percentage based reasons. I initially wrote the comment that abandoning <14 now is like abandoning ie6 back in 2010, when google dropped support[1], but percentage wise, that's not fair either. Since Android API 14 is just celebrating its 14th birthday, I'd guess (nothing to back this up) that you're going to see a sharp dropoff of Android 2.3 marketshare as people replace their old phones. Between developing for the future, and incentivising people to switch away from old technology (people don't want to buy an old phone that can't run the latest goodies), I think this is still the correct path to choose. Kill it with fire. I don't take much issue with making Android 2.3 a second-class citizen at this point. [1] http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201001-201001-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201001...
- donretag 13y ago
  Most users can easily upgrade their browser if forced to. Upgrading your phone is not as easy.
maaku 13y ago
Site is giving me a database error, so I'm committing the sin of posting based only on the title :( Hipster Mountain View/Palo Alto is not the world. Most people who manage to afford to buy a smartphone, use the thing until it dies. I personally just upgraded from an Android 2.3 device, and my latest Apple device is on iOS 2. And I read Hacker News for christ's sake. Maybe for your app, your community the norms are different. But be careful not to bias your data - you better be sure that you are not unknowingly turning away people who would be customers if only you supported their device.
- dannyr 13y ago
  Need to resize my server. Can't handle traffic. Read the blog post then decide. Wrote perspective from different Android devs in the blog post.
  - projct 13y ago
    caching?
    - dannyr 13y ago
      I'm on the cheapest plan on Digital Ocean. I'm resizing to a bigger plan.
      - antimatter 13y ago
        Since it looks like you're on Wordpress, the supercache plugin (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/) should help even on the cheapest Digital Ocean plan.
        dannyr 13y ago
        Thanks. I'll install that.
  - imperio59 13y ago
Zigurd 13y ago
I'ma let him finish when his site comes up, but here why I generally recommend targeting Android 4: 1. If you want to make a UI that scales across all device sizes, and you don't want to use hacks like ActionBarSherlock that will become a maintenance headache after the moment of convenience, build your app skeleton around Android 4 APIs. 2. Targeting Android 4 avoids use of the Support Library for back-compatibility, and therefore avoids using FragmentActivity. This isn't as bad as some of the back-compatible action bar hacks, but it is still an unnecessary complication in most cases. N.B. you may still want to use the Support Library for new APIs like PagerAdapter. 3. Tablets are going to increase in importance, and for some apps, tablets are the main target. Center your implementation strategy around tablets as the ideal experience, with multiple fragments on each tablet-size layout that are "unrolled" into sub-activities when running on a handset. 4. If you think the above point implies a unified code-base, yes, it does. Targeting Android 4 and above will simplify your unified code base. The exception is apps that MUST target every user, and every device in the field. For example, my consultancy had an engagement with a dating site that needed to upgrade their Android app. After weighing the pluses and minuses, the conclusion was that it was better to put in more effort and incur some technical debt to reach every possible user. On the other hand, if you are writing an enterprise app for a green-field deployment, don't even consider supporting old versions.
- dannyr 13y ago
  Site is back up!
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    Excellent article! I'll link it on G+ and on the Programming Andorid page. I would add to the list the fact that people buy apps most often when they have just bought a new handset. Supporting old versions is like making a retrofit product. The market is inherently limited and more costly to support.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
fruzz 13y ago
It's amazing to me that we're saying that a three year old OS is too old to have software written for it. Especially given that a part of the laptop market has metamorphosed into the tablet market. I guess that's not a problem if you buy new tablets/phones every year, which is what we're moving towards.
- dannyr 13y ago
  Maybe it will not be the same when Android 4.0 turns 3-years old. Android 4.0+ is just much more mature than 2.3 in terms of UI and API.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    > Android 4.0+ is just much more mature than 2.3 in terms of UI and API. Maturity is a very important point. Between 2.3 and 4.0, Android became scale-able across tablets and handsets, with unified APIs enabling a unified code-base. Compared to that big change, dealing with API differences from Android 4.0 to 4.4 is a relatively small matter, comparable to testing for hardware capabilities (and often tied to hardware capabilities). You can test for the API version on the fly and keep a unified code base.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Most people buy apps when their device is new-ish. Three year old phones are fine. Five year old phones are fine. But you are not going to sell the users of these devices an app that you started writing today. And you won't lose customers if you stop upgrading them, either.
soapdog 13y ago
Just remember that in some countries Android 4.0 is yet to be the norm...

28 points by purpl3p3rs0n 13y ago

I feel that supporting Android 2.3 at this time is roughly equivalent to supporting IE6. For the majority of people, just stop targeting 2.3 support as a requirement. Perhaps it'll net you some additional marketshare in emerging markets, but for the most part, ≥API14 is ubiquitous to a point where this is a sensible decision.

atlanticus 13y ago
Not supporting IE6 will cost you lucrative enterprise dollars, Android 2.3, while popular, is not nearly as profitable.
- edwintorok 13y ago
  There is a big difference though. People who run IE6 would be usually capable of running some more recent browser, but for various reasons choose not to. People who are stuck with Android 2.x are stuck because their hardware can't support newer versions of Android (well there are various custom ROMs that "work" with various degree of success on older devices, but not really in a usable form).
  - atlanticus 13y ago
    People running IE6 are doing it because their IT department won't let them upgrade.
    - maaku 13y ago
      People running Android 2.3 are doing it because their carrier won't let them upgrade.
- MAGZine 13y ago
  There are certain circumstances where you want to support ie6, though not many outside enterprisey things. ie6 has lost widespread support. Heck, google stopped supporting it three years ago
nawitus 13y ago
<API14 is 30.8% of the user base. http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html IE6 is 4.9% http://www.ie6countdown.com/ http://www.ie6countdown.com/ They're completely different.
- richkz 13y ago
  Perhaps worth looking at the drill down based on country/language...
- Zikes 13y ago
  I'm no Android developer, but with as many API versions I know of for Android it's not hard to imagine that the development experience is very similar. Supporting <API14 may cost more in development and support than the potential customer base gain, especially if the target market is the sort that would have newer devices.
- jere 13y ago
  Yea, I think that's a pretty bad comparison. If you look at the IE graph you posted, it's less than 1% in the US. Another graph that might make things easier to visualize (the blue and above is who we're talking about abandoning): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Android-dist-by-dessert.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Android-dist-by-dessert.pn...
  - MAGZine 13y ago
    I will grant that it is a bad comparison. But, not for percentage based reasons. I initially wrote the comment that abandoning <14 now is like abandoning ie6 back in 2010, when google dropped support[1], but percentage wise, that's not fair either. Since Android API 14 is just celebrating its 14th birthday, I'd guess (nothing to back this up) that you're going to see a sharp dropoff of Android 2.3 marketshare as people replace their old phones. Between developing for the future, and incentivising people to switch away from old technology (people don't want to buy an old phone that can't run the latest goodies), I think this is still the correct path to choose. Kill it with fire. I don't take much issue with making Android 2.3 a second-class citizen at this point. [1] http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201001-201001-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201001...
donretag 13y ago
Most users can easily upgrade their browser if forced to. Upgrading your phone is not as easy.

maaku 13y ago

Site is giving me a database error, so I'm committing the sin of posting based only on the title :( Hipster Mountain View/Palo Alto is not the world. Most people who manage to afford to buy a smartphone, use the thing until it dies. I personally just upgraded from an Android 2.3 device, and my latest Apple device is on iOS 2. And I read Hacker News for christ's sake. Maybe for your app, your community the norms are different. But be careful not to bias your data - you better be sure that you are not unknowingly turning away people who would be customers if only you supported their device.

dannyr 13y ago
Need to resize my server. Can't handle traffic. Read the blog post then decide. Wrote perspective from different Android devs in the blog post.
- projct 13y ago
  caching?
  - dannyr 13y ago
    I'm on the cheapest plan on Digital Ocean. I'm resizing to a bigger plan.
    - antimatter 13y ago
      Since it looks like you're on Wordpress, the supercache plugin (http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/ http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/) should help even on the cheapest Digital Ocean plan.
      - dannyr 13y ago
        Thanks. I'll install that.
- imperio59 13y ago

Zigurd 13y ago

I'ma let him finish when his site comes up, but here why I generally recommend targeting Android 4: 1. If you want to make a UI that scales across all device sizes, and you don't want to use hacks like ActionBarSherlock that will become a maintenance headache after the moment of convenience, build your app skeleton around Android 4 APIs. 2. Targeting Android 4 avoids use of the Support Library for back-compatibility, and therefore avoids using FragmentActivity. This isn't as bad as some of the back-compatible action bar hacks, but it is still an unnecessary complication in most cases. N.B. you may still want to use the Support Library for new APIs like PagerAdapter. 3. Tablets are going to increase in importance, and for some apps, tablets are the main target. Center your implementation strategy around tablets as the ideal experience, with multiple fragments on each tablet-size layout that are "unrolled" into sub-activities when running on a handset. 4. If you think the above point implies a unified code-base, yes, it does. Targeting Android 4 and above will simplify your unified code base. The exception is apps that MUST target every user, and every device in the field. For example, my consultancy had an engagement with a dating site that needed to upgrade their Android app. After weighing the pluses and minuses, the conclusion was that it was better to put in more effort and incur some technical debt to reach every possible user. On the other hand, if you are writing an enterprise app for a green-field deployment, don't even consider supporting old versions.

dannyr 13y ago
Site is back up!
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Excellent article! I'll link it on G+ and on the Programming Andorid page. I would add to the list the fact that people buy apps most often when they have just bought a new handset. Supporting old versions is like making a retrofit product. The market is inherently limited and more costly to support.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

fruzz 13y ago

It's amazing to me that we're saying that a three year old OS is too old to have software written for it. Especially given that a part of the laptop market has metamorphosed into the tablet market. I guess that's not a problem if you buy new tablets/phones every year, which is what we're moving towards.

dannyr 13y ago
Maybe it will not be the same when Android 4.0 turns 3-years old. Android 4.0+ is just much more mature than 2.3 in terms of UI and API.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  > Android 4.0+ is just much more mature than 2.3 in terms of UI and API. Maturity is a very important point. Between 2.3 and 4.0, Android became scale-able across tablets and handsets, with unified APIs enabling a unified code-base. Compared to that big change, dealing with API differences from Android 4.0 to 4.4 is a relatively small matter, comparable to testing for hardware capabilities (and often tied to hardware capabilities). You can test for the API version on the fly and keep a unified code base.
Zigurd 13y ago
Most people buy apps when their device is new-ish. Three year old phones are fine. Five year old phones are fine. But you are not going to sell the users of these devices an app that you started writing today. And you won't lose customers if you stop upgrading them, either.

soapdog 13y ago

Just remember that in some countries Android 4.0 is yet to be the norm...