CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidgoogle-playandroid-api-levels
kencorbin
kencorbin

Reputation: 2008

Where can I complain about Google Store target API level restrictions

Google recently announced that they are going to start restricting publishing Android apps that do not target recent API level versions. I support this change, but I need some special case exceptions, and have not found an appropriate forum to request those. I know that this is not it, but hope someone here can point me where I should go.

I publish an app that has been out for a long time and still has a significant number of users running it under Gingerbread. It also uses a number of support libraries, and the recent versions of those libraries, the ones targeting the latest API levels, no longer support Gingerbread devices. The end result is that I can not build and apk that supports API level 9 if it targets an SDK level greater than 23. Which is not going to be accepted come November.

I did have a plan to address this issue. That was to start distributing two apk files for each update. One that targets the latest API level and has a min API of probably 21. The other will support older devices and will have a target and max API of 20 and a min API of 9. The problem is that the older target API apk will not be accepted by the Play Store unless I can convince someone that they should continue to accept any app where the target and max API levels are the same.

Upvotes: 31

Views: 697

Answers (1)

user16930239
user16930239

Reputation: 9788

Google is not stopping with these restriction, and one of their goals is to kill old apps and old devices.

My recommendation to you as a walk a round:

  • Target the API required by Google
  • Make two versions of the app
  • The 1st version is an empty app that have min SDK (API level 9) and Target the highest API level. this app will Point the users to a link of the APK (self hosted APK will call it 1st ALt version) Try to explain to the users that they need to do this because their devices are older (This self hosted APK should have a very high build code, so if 1st version have build code of 9 the 1st ALt version build code should be something like 1009 and should be signed with the same keystore so the 1st ALt version will be updating the 1st version)
  • Then release a new version of your full app that does not support older API levels, we will call it The 2nd version
  • release the 2nd version with rollout of 99.99999%
  • this way all users from Google Play will download the 2nd version except the users whom have older devices

Upvotes: 0

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