Android API Target

General Discussions
#1

I write this post in order to get opinions on what you think are the best android versions to target and test our code on.

Although the android API is designed in a way that newer versions will work fine with old, depreciated code afaik problems can still occur.

Besides the absolute obvious which is the latest versions and earliest version used on almost every android phone (2.1-2.2).

I currently have 5 phones that I would love to utilize:

HTC Hero - Low end android 2.2 device
HTC HD2 - Low end windows phone, flashed to android 2.3.3
HTC Desire HD - High end in it’s day, pretty sure it is running 2.2
Samsung S4 - High end running android 4.2.2
Galaxy Note III - High end running android 4.4

At the moment I have 3 devices running older API’s and 2 running the latest API’s. Is it worth downgrading my S4 to 4.1.x? According to this here Chart of distribution.

Or should I just target 2.2, 4.2.2 and 4.4? With 35% of smartphones running 4.1.x it seems like it might be a good idea but not sure.

#2

i decided to target 2.3, seems that way it should work on almost any phone. i havnt done any research into how the different api levels affect what your app can do yet though.

#3

Why you don’t create one emulator for each target?
Personally, I only test my games in 4 targets. The smallest and the latest apis in emulators and in my mobile (2.3) and tablet (4.x).

For my game, targets must used:
Android 4.1 ___ 35,37%
Android 2.3.3 - 2.3.7 ___ 19,02%
Android 4.0.3 - 4.0.4 ___ 18,79%
Android 4.2 ___ 12,97%
Android 4.3 ___ 6,59%
Android 2.2 ___ 3,18%
Android 2.1 ___ 1,96%
Android 4.4 ___ 0,87%
Android 1.5 ___ 0,42%
Android 3.2 ___ 0,40%

EDIT: I miss understood this thread. Try to target the lowest api possible.