Android
In the Unity editor, the lowest available Android version for debugging is Android 2.3.1 In my case, I have a phone running an older version of Android and I intend to publish my game to a wide audience. With the lowest version being 2.3.1, I see a problem publishing my games to older smartphones which still occupy a considerable size of the market share. My question is: Is there a way to publish my game to older versions of Android? Or is it impossible?
Versions later than Unity 4.2.x don't support Android versions earlier than 2.3.x. So if your project relies on functionality only present in 4.3.x and higher, you're out of luck.
Otherwise you can still download a 4.2.x or earlier version of Unity and create your builds with that.
Related
I am new in mobile application developing. I am using the android studio to build the application.
The minimumsdk=14 and the targetsdk=28 for my project.
I developed the application's first version and I checked it on my mobile phone(Samsung Galaxy S9, Android Version:8.0) and it works perfectly.
To share the app with the testers devices I uploaded the .apk file online and I gave the link to download it on the devices and then install it.
All the devices have access to a third party (unknown sources) to install apps.
Although, after installing the application, they run the app on their devices and App stop working.
Do you think that the minimum SDK is the problem? Maybe is too high to support many devices?
Can I use an apk only when it is supported? And have a minimum SDK different than the minimum sdk for a specific apk?
I want to use apk that are supported from newer versions SDK but continue to be compatible with older versions of SDKs.
Any help would be appreciated!!
so I'm using QT to develop an app for Android, and according to Sophos Mobile Security this app is "Built for outdated Android versions: this app doesn't support recent android security features. the app was built for an older version of android"
in qt creator I have android-25 set as the android build sdk (which I wouldn't consider old after all, it's 7.1.1 nougat)
how can I make this warning go away? Is there a way to build my app for a newer version of android without excluding users from using it? (I have 7.1.1, and at least I want to use my app)
thank you for your response in advance.
EDIT:
seems like there are (at least?) 3 spots where I can set an SDK version:
minimum required sdk, as seen on the screenshot here: Qt for android: change the application icon
target SDK version, as seen on the screenshot above
this was the only one I was aware an hour ago: projects->build->build android apk->android build sdk
what they govern, how to set them? should they be the same or different?
Android suggests you use the latest sdk version for targetSdkVersion and for build-tools version (they have to match). In fact, Google Play now requires you to target at least SDK 26. This will not prevent older devices from running app. Actually it will be more problematic for newer devices, as you are stating that app has been fully tested and can run on newer devices, and does not need backward compatibility. See https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/develop/target-sdk for more details.
As for minSdkVersion, that is what will determine the earliest devices supported, and you should try to keep it as low as you can, and as 95-99% of your users.
I'm trying to scale my app to all screen sizes and I read that if I compile the app against android 3.2 then I'll be able to use the new qualifiers etc....But my question is - if I do compile it at this version, does that mean that mobile phones that have a lesser platform won't be able to download or run the app? Will I be excluding the majority of phones for the sake of including a very small percentage of phones that the tablets currently comprise?
You may compile your app using the newest SDK version of Android, or in your case 3.2, and the app should continue to run on older versions of Android. The only thing to be careful of here is to ensure that the API methods you use are still compatible with the older versions. These newer qualifiers that you mention would not be allowed for the older versions of your app, but there are some compatibility libraries that you may use for them found here:
http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/support-library.html
To ensure that your app is compatible with older versions of Android, you can install the newest ADT and also run Android Lint. Lint will point out functions that may not be available on different versions of Android, based on your manifest file. Your manifest file allows you to determine the minimum version of android that can use your app, as well as the ideal version of Android that your app is made for. Please refer to the following link for more details about versioning your app, and some backwards compatibility:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html
I'm new To android ecosystem.
Do I really need to install all the SDK from Android 1.5 to Android 4.1? to create an app which will support almost all the Android versions
No, one should be fine. Pick the latest one. So 4.1 be it!
Just set your apps mininum sdk version to the desired api level.
Eclipse should warn you if you use stuff that aint working on that minumum version.
Do I really need to install all the SDK from Android 1.5 to Android 4.1? to create an app which will support almost all the Android versions
You need to test your app on any version that you intend to support. For those Android versions that you have a physical device for, you can test your app on that (most likely). For anything else, you will at least need to download the emulator images, so you can create emulators for those older Android versions.
I am currently using PhoneGap 1.7, just having created the HelloWorld app, per the instructions at their site. However, I believe it requires Android Revision 15 or higher (4.0.3). I will eventually be wrapping a jQuery Mobile app with PhoneGap and I need it to be runnable on Android 2.x. Android 1.x and 3.x would be nice but are not required. How can I create a deployable app that will work on 2.x and 4.x versions of Android (with 1.x and 3.x being optional)? I hope I don't have to have different versions of PhoneGap and thus different deployment app versions. I'd like to have one deployable app for all versions.
Thank you very much for any help.
I am not familiar at all with phonegap. But with native development the API levels are backward compatible. So you can build the application with API 15, but set the android:minSdkVersion in the manifest to something lower. I imagine this is how phonegap works also, so even though you are using the newest API level it should still be backward compatible.
i.e. in the manifest of a native app
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7"/>
would indicate that the application is able to run on any devices that are Android 2.1 or newer. Even though you've added the 4.0.3 android jar file to your project the system is smart enough to make sure that it still works on the older devices as long as you set this in the manifest.
It is also worth noting that if your app takes advantage of any newer API's then you'll have to come up with a way to ensure those features get turned off if the app detects that the OS version it is currently on is too old to support the feature.