Android versions clarification

Question

I'm going to develop an app for Galaxy Tab. So I want to know, if I develop it under Android 2.3.3, if it will work in all later versions (up to 4.2).

My customer wants the app to be run on Galaxy Tab and Huawei Media Pad.

What would be the appropriate parameters for:

1. Minimum Required SDK =
2. Target SDK =
3. Complie With =
4. Theme =

Answer 1

Develop on 4.2, set min required SDK to 2.3, with a little care not to use older APIs that won't work. Android Lint should help.

And, to make it adaptable for all the versions, you will have to patch up some kind of compatibility codes here and there. That should work without any problems.

Theme: There's a nice tutorial how to handle this. http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2012_11_01_archive.html

Basically, you will need to create your own theme, and extend from the corresponding themes, depending on the SDK version (ex, Theme for 2.3 and less, and Theme.Holo for 3.0 and higher), and then you can customize your theme.

Answer 2

You can set target sdk to the highest version you plan to target and it'll run fine on older versions.

Set your minimum SDK to 10 (android 2.3.3) and target sdk to 17 (android 4.2).

Now your app will run on any version from 2.3.3 and above.

Target sdk only lets android system know that the app is tested on that version and prevent the system from having to do some extra work to make the app compatible. App will run on all versions after target sdk also.

Min sdk will tell which is the minimum version that your app can run on. App will run on all versions after this but not before this version.

Please see this thread if you want more detailed information:

Android Min SDK Version vs. Target SDK Version

Answer 3

Yes, if your developing version of 2.3.3 it will be support all the higher versions

here is reference for Supporting Multiple Screens and Samsung Galaxy Tab version history

Answer 4

Minimum Required SDK = 10 Target SDK = 17 Compile With = JDK 1.6 Theme = Theme.Holo [or ignore this]

If possible, set minimum SDK to 6 or 7, just increase it if you're getting errors.

I'd highly recommend looking into something like Action Bar Sherlock if you want full compatibility from lower versions of Android. Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich have somewhat different takes on things like Theme. Action Bar Sherlock will make it look similar on all versions.