Can I remove com.google.android.gms.version from AndroidManifest when I use gradle?

Question

I wonder if I can remove this line safely:

<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.version" android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version" />

from my AndroidManifest.xml when I use gradle to build my APK.

According to the website https://developers.google.com/android/guides/setup only when I choose "ECLIPSE WITH ADT" I have to add this line. For "ANDROID STUDIO" usage this is not mentioned.

But in my case I use Eclipse (with ADT) as IDE but I build with gradle. (Actually it is a libGDX project). So I added the play-services by using gradle:

compile "com.google.android.gms:play-services:8.1.0"

So I run the app on a test device and I tested to login with play-services and it worked fine without having the line above in my AndroidManifest.xml

But, maybe the login just does not need the "com.google.android.gms.version" value and another part of the play services lib needs it? But I cannot test all the possible ways to use the lib.

Does anybody know for sure?

Or for those of you who use Android Studio + play services: Does your AndroidManifest.xml have the line above?

Answer 1

Yes, as of Google Play services 7.0 (improved in 7.5 to remove the restriction on applying to the full play-services dependency), the <meta-data> tag is automatically added to your Manifest file by Gradle via Manifest merging.