Android, the bottom line (version)

If you’d ask me back in the 1st quarter of 2014 what would be the lowest Android OS version to support, 2.3.3 would be my answer. But There are some factors that indicate it’s time to shift that upwards:

Android OS usage statistics

As you can see in the image below, the OS usage has shifted to higher versions of the OS. Coverage will be as high as 91,8 % when you support version 4.0.3 or higher with your Android app.

Android Os Versions

Android OS statistics, january 5th 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google’s support for Android Webview shifts

As stated in this post, Android’s Webview support is moving its borders upwards towards Android 4.4 (KitKat). Versions 4.3 and before will not receive any patches or fixes for issues that are being found. This makes the ground for hybrid apps somewhat slippery for versions 4.0.3 to 4.4.
Although I still see many people using older hardware that – obviously – has its limitations and OS versions lower then 4.0 the best thing to do formally is to support 4.0 and upwards and leave it at that. What are your toughts about this?