[cageface]

The way Android layouts work and the backporting Google has done relieves a lot of this pain and you can now support only 2.3 and up and still get the majority of users.

If you want to get the kind of pixel-perfect layouts people have come to expect on the iPhone then yes that's a hassle. But I suspect the trend is away from that kind of design towards more flexible, information-centric designs just as it's been on the web.

[ryanhuff]

20% of Android devices in the field are 2.2 or earlier. Its hard to tell a company that they should cut out 20% of their Android users in order to take advantage of the latest APIs.

[cageface]

Is it? My clients have all been fine with it. Going back to 2.2 isn't that hard but the people on those devices aren't likely to be very valuable customers.

[vacri]

Isn't it similar for pre-iphone 3 users, who also frequently get left out in the cold?