Other What min SDK should i use in my apps?

[ilan]

Hi Guys

I guess this question is not asked very much by developers

i always thought i should set the minimum sdk that is needed to run my app so i can reach as much people as i can
but is this really the right thing to do?

after some research i found out the 82.7 % of all devices uses API 15+ Android 4.0.3 +(http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html update: 1/5/2014)

so maybe its better to set the min SDK to 15 and the app will run on most devices almost the same then use small min sdk and get always crash reports or other surprises...

think about it

 

[NJDude]

Unless your app uses features found only on higher SDKs, leave the minimum SDK level as 8.

 

[ilan]

8? WHY NOT 10? there are only 1% of all android devices that use api 8

i would say its better to set it to min sdk 10 or jump to 15 ...

 

[NJDude]

This is of course my opinion, but I said 8 because as you can see on that list the oldest version is Froyo (SDK 8) so, go for the oldest.

 

[ilan]

this is not the oldest, the oldest is SDK4 android 1.6, but version with less the 0.1% are not show...

Data collected during a 7-day period ending on May 1, 2014.
Any versions with less than 0.1% distribution are not shown.

sorry missed that:

Note: Because this data is gathered from the new Google Play Store app, which supports Android 2.2 and above, devices running older versions are not included. However, in August, 2013, versions older than Android 2.2 accounted for about 1% of devices that checked in to Google servers (not those that actually visited Google Play Store).

and still i would say 10 or 15

 

[NJDude]

There you go.