[atonse]

I've only developed for iOS, but the 2 weeks I spent 2 years ago developing for Android, I was simply relieved that I only had to target one Android tablet, so my genuine question:

Is there any such thing as an "Android audience?" Calling it a "Samsung Galaxy S4 audience" or "Moto X audience" might be more accurate, right? Because if you want to reach that so called entire Android audience, you have to target much older operating systems and set that as your lowest common denominator.

[hibrian]

I think there's an "Android Audience". Regardless of device, they/I want portrait and landscape, android look 'n feel (Actionbar, etc), desktop widgets, background push, and so on. There are fairly easy ways to support some new and old APIs without resorting to lowest common denominator, such as checking the version before making the API call, and reflection. It is a continuing support and testing issue to support "This works on 4.0+ only" features.

The big problem with testing is interacting with OEM and 3rd party apps for your own core app functionality. Such as launching an external camera to take a picture: who knows what camera app the user has installed, and what it will return back to your app.

[pearjuice]

I am not sure about Android development these days, but 2 years ago cross-device support was horrible, yes. I think Android >4 solved most if not all of these complaints by standardizing core aspects of the system. You still have a whole bunch of devices running on Android <4, so you do have to invest more time in 100% device coverage, yes. It is an advantage that with Apple there are only a handful of devices with tight integration in the SDK, but due to its openness Android was (and still is to an extinct) very segmented.