[alyandon]

Android phones that are 8 major versions out of date because the OEM won't support them probably don't have that feature.

[ehsankia]

8 major versions, that is surely less than 5% of the Android population. I'm sure the security flaws in those non-updated phones is far more serious than the lack of microphone indicator.

[onli]

According to https://source.android.com/docs/core/permissions/privacy-ind..., the microphone indicator is only in there since Android 12. Android 12 and 13 cover only 50% of Android phones, according to https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android/m.... There were some "access to the microphone is restricted for background apps" changes earlier, reported for Android 9. But I wouldn't rely on them, and even if those restriction always worked, that still made ~10% of Android phones vulnerable.

[ohgodplsno]

For context, this is the worldwide stats that Google reports:

https://imgur.com/a/mqBE8wM

30% on Android 13 is absolutely not believable, both from personal experiences and data collected.

[mdale]

It seems highly inefficient to listen to users 24/7 given the other more specific signals that are available. Rather have a transaction data point around everything someone has purchased then what they talk about.

[Aeolun]

Ice Cream Sandwich was the best android, and nobody can tell me otherwise.

[Pxtl]

Agreed. Android 4 was peak Android. Most of my favorite Android games are from that era and very few of them run anymore. I wish Google either make a sandboxed emulation layer for those old abandoned games.

[versteegen]

Wait... what? As someone who's always tried to target the oldest Android version I can which Google Play will still allow uploading (for a long time, Android 2.3), this is alarming. Why don't they run now? I don't actually play games on Android myself.

[Pxtl]

No idea of what API they're hitting but basically half of my old humble library won't run anymore - they show a warning about old APIs, show the title screen, then crash to desktop.

Even some old games I paid for are gone from the Play Store too. Like, I paid for Puffle Launch and it's just plain gone from my library.

Edit: ahah, I was looking in the wrong spot! Its still in my "not installed" list, just not in my "family library". Either way, not compatible with any device I own.

[exikyut]

Ah, 2011, the age of so many Angry Birds clones...

I just found https://archive.org/details/PuffleLaunchAPK and https://archive.org/details/PuffleLaunchAmazonAPK (both point to each other), with a note that says that the latter generally works and the former crashes. I can verify this; on my (Android 8, 32-bit compatible) device the Play version crashes with:

  08-10 14:55:03.864 25995 25995 E linker  : ERROR: OOPS:     0 cannot map library 'libmono.so'. no vspace available.
  08-10 14:55:03.864 25995 25995 D AndroidRuntime: Shutting down VM
  ...
  08-10 14:55:03.865 25995 25995 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
  08-10 14:55:03.865 25995 25995 E AndroidRuntime: Process: com.disney.PuffleLaunch, PID: 25995
  08-10 14:55:03.865 25995 25995 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Bad JNI version returned from JNI_OnLoad in "/data/app/com.disney.PuffleLaunch-rjdXjIyhGz7STdfxQ9xH2g==/lib/arm/libmono.so": 0

I'm always on the lookout for old interesting games, and maybe there are workarounds for the other titles in your library too. What's the list?

[alyandon]

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with the 8. However, it is just as valid to talk about unpatched security flaws.