Maximizing Google Play Services Backwards Compatibility

Question

What are the recommended practices for maintaining the widest backwards compatibility of an Android app while depending on Google Play Services?

The developer implementa

Answer 1

I'm the developer of an SDK that optionally depends on Google Play Services, and my approach has been, as you mentioned, to compile against the oldest version of Google Play Services that contains the APIs that I need, such that downstream clients won't into issues like these.

If the APIs that you need are available in v4, it's safe to compile against com.google.android.gms:play-services:4.+, and to follow Google's directions to show a prompt to a user to upgrade. Users will only see the upgrade dialog if they're running an older version of v4, or if they're somehow still on v3. In either case, the upgrade dialog should correctly lead them to the Play Store, where there will indeed be an upgrade available.

If the APIs that you need are only available in v5, do not use a wildcard version (ie 5.+). You should compile against an older version that is likely to be widespread, such as com.google.android.gms:play-services:5.0.89. Using a wildcard means you'll compile against the very latest version of Google Play Services that you've installed in the Android SDK manager, on whatever computer/environment you happen to be compiling on, which to me just feels wrong - I don't care if it's Google building the library, I like to know exactly what I'm compiling into my app.

Moreover, with a wildcard, if you always keep your SDK manager updated, whenever you compile the release version of your app and then push it to Google Play, you may have just shipped an app against a version of Play Services that isn't widespread, or worse - isn't even available for download on every device yet, in which case users will get the dialog and not be able to upgrade, as you've seen during development.