Appropriate way to use Android Support Library

Question

When I created a new app, I got this

class NewApplicationActivity extends ActionBarActivity{... }

So I have read that, if you want to use a new feature from a newer API level, you better make it such that there is an alternative option for the App to combat any situation for the minSDKVersion that you plan to support.

Assuming this is true, lets say I decide to build my App against targetSDKVersion = 21(which I did in the above example), I would get the base Activity class as ActionBarActivity. Now this is from support library and works for older version(down to Android 2.1 I guess..).

The thing is, I am stuck with these alternative set of support libraries rather than platform libraries. Am I gonna miss something significant if this happens? Will I get a chance to incorporate the platform specific code from API 21 into my App ever? The majority of Apps are made with compatibility in mind. How do you people handle this?

Answer 1

Support Libraries such as AppCompat (which is what ActionBarActivity and its replacement AppCompatActivity are part of) are designed to reflect the latest platform changes and backport as much as possible. Thereby by using AppCompat, you are already using a large number of API 21 features (such as material theme).

Of course, there is nothing stopping you including any API from any level in your application: just make sure that they are guarded by the appropriate API level checks: this is exactly what many of the Compat classes in Support v4 such as NotificationCompat and ViewCompat do for you.