By : Ketan Bhimani
104
listed on the Android Market, applications can be filtered by these
types of information; the Android platform also checks these
requirements when installing the application package on the
system and errors out if necessary.
Some of the application system requirements that developers can
configure through the Android manifest file include
The Android SDK versions supported by the application
The Android platform features used by the application
The Android hardware configurations required by the application
The screen sizes and pixel densities supported by the application
Any external libraries that the application links to
Targeting Specific SDK Versions
Android devices run different versions of the Android platform.
Often, you see old, less powerful, or even less expensive devices
running older versions of the Android platform, whereas newer,
more powerful devices that show up on the market often run the
latest Android software.
There are now dozens of different Android devices in users’ hands.
Developers must decide who their target audience is for a given
application. Are they trying to support the largest population of
users and therefore want to support as many different versions of
the platform as possible? Or are they developing a bleeding-edge
game that requires the latest device hardware?
Developers can specify which versions of the Android platform an
application supports within its Android manifest file using the
<uses-sdk> tag. This tag has three important attributes:
The minSdkVersion attribute:This attribute specifies the lowest API level
that the application supports.