Android API Range Support?

[bleege]

tl;dr - How to make Android GL as widely available / usable as possible?

In order to make sure that as many people / developers as possible can use Android GL in a developer resource realistic way we're going to have to think about Android API ranges. Google says that OpenGL 2.0 support is available at API 8 and above. The good news is that there is a minuscule number of those devices being used these days. That said those same numbers also show that there's still 10% of all Android devices in the wild are running API 10. Yikes!

The good news is that the vast majority seem to be in the Jelly Bean range (API 16, 17, and 18). Currently it looks like Android GL is using API 14 as a floor. What do you all think about using API 10 as a floor (for the time being until those numbers drop) while always adjusting the ceiling to the latest and greatest Android API (currently API 21)?

Finally, I can never keep track of all the dessert names and API numbers that Google puts out (I just get hungry thinking about it though.). Thankfully Google keeps a list of 'em all for us: Android Code Names And API Names.

/cc
@incanus @ljbade @springmeyer

Also see #604

[ljbade]

Working on it: #555

Will need to use Android support library I think to get it running on lower than this.

Good news is that I have a Gingerbread phone we can test on - should add it to my table.

[bleege]

Fantastic! I saw that the min sdk was set to 14 and the lowest version on #555 to test was "2" (which could be API 5 through 10) so it wasn't clear to me what the strategy was. What API level are you ultimately thinking about using as a floor?

[ljbade]

I managed to hack it up to work on my 2.3.3 phone (see the screenshot on my other issue).

It wasn't too hard, just had to comment out newer API functions and compile for armeabi instead of armeavi-v7.

With a bit of refactoring of the input handling code and some changes to mason I should be able to push it this week.

Once I get that going I will see how low I can get it to work without needing lots of changes. Floor will be API 9 (2.3.0) because that is when EGL was added.

[ljbade]

@bleege I updated #555 to be a bit more clear.

It can be confusing when talking about Android version (4.4.x) vs API level (19) vs code name (Kit Kat).

Generally when I say Android x.x I mean version, and will say API x for API level.

[bleege]

It can be confusing when talking about Android version (4.4.x) vs API level (19) vs code name (Kit Kat).

Totally agree. Especially when there are point releases of versions (I'm looking at you Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4) and a code name can mean anywhere between 2-3 different API levels. That's why FWIW I've generally gravitated toward using API numbers over the years, especially in the context of software development. It's crazy making sometimes! :-)

[ljbade]

Closing since this is covered by #555