Android Versions
Versions of Android and API Targets
| Nickname | Android OS Version & | API Level | Release Date | Linux Kernel Version | ADT Version 
| Reference Device, Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kit Kat | 4.4 | 19 | May 2013? | 3.8 & ART | ? | Nexus 9? Maybe better battery life, better support for video formats (displaying two apps at the same time), better integration with Google’s own services, better and better organized user interface and customization tools. |
| Jelly Bean | 4.3 | 18 | July 2013 | ? | ? | - |
| 4.2 | 17 | May 2013 | ? | ? | HTC One Intl. Turns down CPU when idle. New camera. Better typing. HDMI TV wireless adapter to display from mobile device. Daydream (to suck battery life) while idle. Beam to share photos. Google Photo Spheres | |
| 4.1 | 16 | Oct 2012 | ? | ? | Nexus 7 | |
Ice Cream Sandwich
| 4.0.3 | 15 | 16 Dec 2011 | - | - | Samsung Galaxy Nexus. VPN support. Keychain API for encrypted storage. Brings Honeycomb to phones. System Bar eliminates physical navigation buttons, Clipboard. Drag and Drop. "Roboto" font, NFC Beam, Face Unlock. CyanogenMod 9 (cm9). |
| 4.0 | 14 | 19 Oct 2011 | 3.0.1 | - | ||
Honeycomb
| 3.2 | 13 | - | - | - | New Layout for tablet sizes, Holographic theme. |
| 3.1.x | 12 | 15 Jul 2011 | - | - | - | |
| 3.0 | 11 | 22 Feb 2011 | 2.6.36 | 9 | Motorola Xoom tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (given out at Google IO conference). Action bar, widgets, Holographic UI, Encryption | |
Gingerbread
| 2.3.4 2.3.3 | 10 | Jan. 2010 | - | - | Samsung Galaxy S with NFC support |
| 2.3.2 2.3.1 2.3 | | 6 December 2010 | 2.6.35 | 8 | Adds HTTP Download mgr,
OBBs,
<xlargeScreens="true". CyanogenMod 7 (cm7). | |
Froyo
| 2.2 | 8 | 20 May 2010 | 2.6.32 | - | Samsung smartphones & Tab. CyanogenMod 6 (cm6). |
Eclair
| 2.1 | 7 | - | - | - | - |
| 2.0.1 | | - | - | - | - | |
| 2.0 | | 26 October 2009 | 2.6.29 | - | Motorola Droid. Account Sync, Service API changes | |
Donut
| 1.6 | 4 | 15 September 2009 | 2.6.29 | - | More flexible, more robust RelativeLayout, Easier click listeners |
Cupcake
| 1.5 | 3 | 30 April 2009 | 2.6.27 | 0.9 | 24 more languages |
| Base 1_1 (no logo) | 1.1 | 2 | 9 February 2009 | - | - | T-Mobile G1 from HTC (given out at Google IO conference). |
| Base | 1.0 | 1 | Sep. 2008 | 2.6.25 | - | HTC Dream on T-Mobile |
Notice the first character of nicknames is alphabetical. What's something yummy with a name starting with K? Kisses?
Android Version Fragmentation
WIKIPEDIA: Features of each version
ARTICLE:
Android Fragmentation:
What It Means for You, Dear IT Manager
by the EMF (Enterprise Mobility Foundation),
which explores enterprise use of mobile.
Everyone on 1.0 and 1.1 got upgraded over the air (OTA) automatically to 1.5.
WARNING:
As of Nov. 2011, about 98% of devices are version 2.3 and below. 86% are 2.3 and 2.2.
However, since new activations are occuring at a million a day,
this will change over time.
WARNING: A device may not be updatable to a newer version due to its obsolete firmware.
ARTICLE:
Android Ophans presents a visual of Android phones having old versions of software
because manufacturers and carriers are not bothering to upgrade Android devices.
So different combinations of carrier/manufacturer/model can have different patches
(or none at all).
By contrast, Apple releases, at the same time, OS updates and patches to all devices across all carriers for every model released in the previous two years.
Moving from Version 1.6
Many developers have abandonded support for version 1.5 due to the low number of such early devices still in use and changes to a re-structuring of calls which make backward compatibility difficult.
Moving to Honeycomb v3 with Multiple Formats on One Codebase
When Android core developers rushed Honeycomb to support tablets, they did not have time to ensure complete backward compatibility. So code for Honeycomb officially only supported tablets and not hand-held phones that came before.
This caused frustration by users who tried to install Honeycomb apps to handsets, then marking such apps lower than they deserved.
Clever developers created
various patches
to force backward compatibility using
fragments introduced in Honeycomb with an
Android Compatibility Library (ACL).
android:hardwareAccelerated="true" added to the <application> element in the manifest makes 2D graphics and stock widget work faster. Older Android devices ignores it.
Moving to Ice Cream Sandwich v4.0
Apps that read XML needed to add a workaround which was fixed in ICS. This then causes the code to break under ICS.
The implementation from Xml.newPullParser() had a bug where calls to nextText() didn’t always advance to the END_TAG as the documentation promised it would. Some apps work around the bug with extra calls to next() or nextTag():
ARTICLE:
Working with XML on Android 23 Jun 2009
by Michael Galpin, eBay Software architect
describes use of native Java's Simple API for XML (SAX) and Document Object Model (DOM) to
read an RSS feed from Androidster.com
It uses Android's equivalent for Java's newer Streaming API for XML (StAX).
ARTICLE: Watch out for XmlPullParser.nextText() posted by Jesse Wilson Dec 19, 2011 described coding which assumes that ICS was installed.
ARTICLE: How to Parse and Read XML Data into Android ListView from HTML request provide code (dated 2011/04) in
-
APP:
XMLtest.rar