The developer of Carbon on working on Android with some interesting things to say about only opti...

[G+_Marlon Thompson]

The developer of Carbon on working on Android with some interesting things to say about only optimising for ICS and newer

 

Originally shared by M.Saleh Esmaeili

 

On developing for Android v.4+ strategy

 

Last year when I started working on +Carbon for Android I started on a clean sheet, I decided to do that on Ice Cream Sandwich and find my way back to older versions as I got the hang of Android and its support/backward compatibility modules.

 

At around May last year I had decided not to make it backward compatible with older devices. The reason behind that is quite simple, Carbon requires a bit of a performing phone although it is fast and performant even on the slowest Ice Cream Sandwich devices. I then tried it on an HTC Sensation that previously ran Gingerbread, upon updating to ICS I came to see what I was going to deal with if I had to make Carbon backward compatible and run on older devices.

 

Another good reason is how odd Holo apps would look like on earlier versions of Android, your app would be the outsider, as opposed to how Gingerbread apps look like outsiders on ICS+ devices.

 

So is it working for me? Definitely. While I was getting tips from fellow developers on why I shouldn't go forward with my plan and take advantage of a whopping 50%+ of the whole Android user base that was then on Gingerbread, I went forward with it, and it is working, well, based on my goals.

 

Have I published Carbon last year as planned in July was I going to get the saem results? Definitely not. The whole Android landscape is different from six months ago, Gingerbread is finally below 50% and Ice Cream Sandwich & Jelly Bean are on a quick rise.

 

Here are some of the numbers from Carbon install base stats.

 

41.77% are on Android 4.1

34.15% are on Android 4.2

24.06% are on Android 4.0.3 - 4.0.4

%0.01 are on Android 4.0 - 4.0.2

 

Carbon passed 100K downloads on its 8th day on the Play Store while serving only Android 4+ users, do you think you should ignore earlier versions of Android going forward? I sure do think so. Talk back!