Dianne, Thank you very much for the response, I very much appreciate it when Google employees weigh in on these questions.
So my overall goal with releasing applications is to be able to reach as many people as possible, and tonight before reading your message I released an updated version built against the1.5 sdk of the 6 games in question (really 3 games with a paid/free option). By my observations currently there are a handful of Android phones that I can get by walking into a store today here in the Dalla, TX area, Sprint hero/moment, Verizon Droid/Droid Eris, Tmobile g1/ mytouch3g/Cliq/Behold II etc.. The Droid is the only phone running 2.0, g1/mytouch3g are the only ones running 1.6, and the rest of them run 1.5 to my knowledge. So my latest move to release new packages built off of Android 1.5 should allow for these games to be seen on all current US phones, but not on the Tattoo, is that correct? Would the better route have been to build against the 2.0.1 sdk and set the minimum sdk field to 1.5 and then tested on as many devices as possilbe? Thanks again for the reply and any further insight is greatly appreciated. ---Sean Catlin On Dec 6, 1:39 am, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > Fwiw, I would generally recommend that people build against the latest SDK > with the APIs they want (in your case 1.6 here), setting > android:targetSdkVersion to that, and android:minSdkVersion to the earliest > version of the platform they want to run on. Develop against that target > SDK, and test against the minimum SDK to make sure that you aren't using > APIs are making assumptions that don't work on the older platform. > > A newer version of the platform will be able to run apps developed or > targeting older platforms, so since Droid runs 2.0 it doesn't matter whether > you are building for 1.6 or 1.5 it will still be seen on 2.0. > > However, the situation with Tattoo is different, where some features that > were assumed to be on all devices no longer exist (auto-focus camera, HVGA > screen space). For the former, if an app is using the camera then it is > assumed to be incompatible unless it explicitly says it doesn't need > auto-focus. For the latter, unfortunately all apps needed to be assumed to > be incompatible until they could be updated to explicitly support smaller > screens. Note that this really has nothing to do with platform versions, > but just that historically apps have been designed for HVGA screens, and > there is no good way to get them to generally work well when confronted with > a smaller screen so they need to be explicitly updated to support that > screen. Unlike Tattoo, Droid has a larger screen, which is easy for the > platform to provide compatibility with for older apps. > > > > On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 7:51 PM, snctln <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello Android Developers, > > > Are Android 1.5 applications available for download on the android > > market on the Motorola Droid? > > > I have a few popular games on the android market (BreakTheBlocks, > > PingPong, and WordWrench), when the 1.6sdk was released I released new > > apks to the market built with that sdk so that I could gain support > > for multiple screen sizes, at the time that meant the HTC Tattoo > > (QVGA). I am fortunate enough to have an htc tattoo to develop with, > > but i don't have a droid so i cannot check for myself on this issue. > > > I feel like I am missing out on quite a few potential sales by having > > my applications built with 1.6 and am thinking of releasing an update > > that downgrades the sdk version to 1.5, but am not sure if that will > > then have me miss out on all of the 2.0 Droid sales. > > > What are other developers doing? It seems that the market on my > > tattoo is rather sparse when compared to the market on my 1.5 adp1. > > > I know the issue boils down to screen resolution support and 1.6/2.0 > > scaling, I am just curious about sdk support on the droid... maybe a > > droid user can tell me if some of my1.5 applications are available for > > download (SImpleWidgetPack or Droid411, or just search for > > snctlnsoftware) > > > Thanks in advance for any answers > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "Android Developers" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<android-developers%[email protected]> > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > [email protected] > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such > questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and > answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
