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by Aachen 1951 days ago
What's a minsdk force? I know what minsdk is but the sentence doesn't compute for me

Edit: oh, randomly spotted this:

> A major factor was the API level requirement by Google Play. It required us to make changes to internals of the app in order to be able to publish updates via the Play Store.

I don't get the problem. Why not do a release? If google doesn't want the hard work and updates yet, fine, you can still tag a new release and people can use f-droid, download the apk, whatever right? (I'm using it via f-droid, thought most people would be doing that since it's an open source client with graphics from the 2009, the kind of thing you only use as foss fan).
1 comments
richardwhiuk 1951 days ago
In order to release a new version to the appstores, both Google and Apple require a certain minimum version for the app to be compiled against.

Historically, Apple gives you about a year before you have to compile against the latest SDK, and Google gave you a lot longer.

However, recently, both have become more aggressive about requiring new versions to be compiled against the latest SDKs.

Thus you can't do a "proper" release without moving up to the latest SDK.

Compiling against the latest SDK often breaks things, especially for an app which does a lot of things in the background.

This is part of the "cost of staying still" in mobile app development, which is both hard to predict, and can be very expensive.

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Aachen 1951 days ago
Does this also mean older devices are forced into obsolescence? Since this is minsdk and not maxsdk it sounds like it, but there's still many apps that run on my 2018 device with Android 7 (and even 2012 device with 4.4) so that can't really be.
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distances 1951 days ago
No it doesn't. It's about targetSdk, not minSdk.
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richardwhiuk 1951 days ago
Sorry, yes, I mean targetSdk not minSdk - though in practice they are linked.
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distances 1950 days ago
No, they aren't linked. Maybe you are mixing it with compileSdk, that and targetSdk are usually linked but minSdk is almost always considerably behind.
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swanswan 1951 days ago
Well anyway older devices are indeed forced into obsolescence, at least OS-wise.
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