Android Tutorial

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.