Developer wants to build in version 4.0.x and 4.1

Question

I've got a quote from a developer to build a couple of Android apps. For both the contract states: "App will be compatible with Android OS 4.0.x and 4.1".

Can anyone please tell whether this poses any problems for people wanting to run the apps on newer versions of Android's OS? Not sure if I should be worried or not.

Many thanks Drew

Answer 1

Mostly, newer Android API fully support older API. That means anything that works on 4.1 should work on 4.3, 4.4, etc

Still, not everything that can run on 4.1 can run on 2.2, for example. Backwards compactibility is a huge problem sometimes

Answer 2

Targeting a minimum of 4.0 won't stop the apps from working on the current versions of android. The only major difference that I can think of is the default color accents being changed in 4.4 (The current highest release). This can be addressed by your developer if your desired styling overrides the defaults anyways, otherwise know that in 4.0 youll see lots of blues, but in 4.4+ youll see a more subtle grey accent.

That isn't to say that this will always be the case though. At any point the OS can take a right turn like they did with the HOLO changes that were introduced between 2.3 and 3.0, which would make your "legacy" app not function as it use to. At this point, you would either have to have the app redone, or accept the flaws in this completely hypothetical future state.

Answer 3

Unless the API is depecrated, they will always work on newer versions. The problem usually is older versions unable to support newer API, not the other way round.