[Derek W1]

I keep seeing people say that the Android Runtime on Blackberry is going to die because apps no longer support Jellybean. Every app that I've downloaded still works fine on my Passport. So my question is, what apps no longer support Jellybean?

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[paulwallace1234]

I highly doubt anyone is going to list them all

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[Bla1ze]

There's a few. Names escape me now but it's also not really that most won't 'work'. Each app targets an API limit and some apps as they increase their API support, will no longer offer newer features to those running a lower API version because it's simply not supported. So say some app gets a fancy new update with some really bomb diggity features but they're only applicable to API level 24. Well, Jelly Bean is on API Level 18, therefore, you can't make use of / use those features.

Controlling Your App's Availability to Devices


Android supports a variety of features your app can leverage through platform APIs. Some features are hardware-based (such as a compass sensor), some are software-based (such as app widgets), and some are dependent on the platform version. Not every device supports every feature, so you may need to control your app's availability to devices based on your app's required features.


To achieve the largest user-base possible for your app, you should strive to support as many device configurations as possible using a single APK. In most situations, you can do so by disabling optional features at runtime and providing app resources with alternatives for different configurations (such as different layouts for different screen sizes). If necessary, however, you can restrict your app's availability to devices through Google Play Store based on the following device characteristics:


- Device features
- Platform version
- Screen configuration

Platform version


Different devices may run different versions of the Android platform, such as Android 4.0 or Android 4.4. Each successive platform version often adds new APIs not available in the previous version. To indicate which set of APIs are available, each platform version specifies an API level. For instance, Android 1.0 is API level 1 and Android 4.4 is API level 19.


The API level allows you to declare the minimum version with which your app is compatible, using the <uses-sdk> manifest tag and its minSdkVersion attribute.


For example, the Calendar Provider APIs were added in Android 4.0 (API level 14). If your app cannot function without these APIs, you should declare API level 14 as your app's minimum supported version like this:




...

The minSdkVersion attribute declares the minimum version with which your app is compatible and the targetSdkVersion attribute declares the highest version on which you've optimized your app.


Each successive version of Android provides compatibility for apps that were built using the APIs from previous platform versions, so your app should always be compatible with future versions of Android while using the documented Android APIs.


Note: The targetSdkVersion attribute does not prevent your app from being installed on platform versions that are higher than the specified value, but it is important because it indicates to the system whether your app should inherit behavior changes in newer versions. If you don't update the targetSdkVersion to the latest version, the system assumes that your app requires some backward-compatibility behaviors when running on the latest version. For example, among the behavior changes in Android 4.4, alarms created with the AlarmManager APIs are now inexact by default so the system can batch app alarms and preserve system power, but the system will retain the previous API behavior for your app if your target API level is lower than "19".


However, if your app uses APIs added in a more recent platform version, but does not require them for its primary functionality, you should check the API level at runtime and gracefully degrade the corresponding features when the API level is too low. In this case, set the minSdkVersion to the lowest value possible for your app's primary functionality, then compare the current system's version, SDK_INT, to one the codename constants in Build.VERSION_CODES that corresponds to the API level you want to check. For example:


if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
// Running on something older than API level 11, so disable
// the drag/drop features that use ClipboardManager APIs
disableDragAndDrop();
}

https://developer.android.com/guide/...atibility.html

[Derek W1]

I did not what a whole list, just a few major ones. Thank you for the reply Blaze, now I understand.

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[oharamj]

Anything now requiring Google Play Services - which is quite a few.



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