this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
373 points (87.7% liked)

Memes

45636 readers
1447 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that's the Play Store though, not Android itself.

I made some Android apps back in the day, so I know what's happening behind the scenes. Mostly it's that Google updates requirements for the apps. Every once in a while, the requirements go up (e.g. "must be targeted for at least Android Version/API Level X", or "Must follow design guideline Y"). The main point for this is that they don't want abandoned apps cluttering the Play Store.

Old apps tend to not support newer features, e.g. the user being able to allow/deny single permissions. On older Android versions you could either allow all permissions or not use the app, while nowadays you can just pick and choose which permissions to allow.

If you install an older app, it won't support this pick and chose system. Stuff like that.

But all that is just Google/Play Store. If you download the APK from somewhere else (e.g. F-Droid) you can totally run apps from 2010 on a modern phone.