Android development: api 14 vs api 15

Question

I want to develop an app for android ice cream sandwich and versions above. So, what I discover is that android 4.0 supports api 14, and android 4.0.3 api 15. Look at the dashboard http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html . It seems that nobody has android ics 4.0 but only 4.0.3 or 4.0.4 . This is important because if it is as it seems, I'll develop the app using api 15 and not 14. However I'm sure that nobody has android in his version 4.0.0. Could you confirm the data in the dashboard? I mean, cuould you confirm that android ice cream sandwich is present on devices only in the version 4.0.3 and 4.0.4? Thanks

Answer 1

Less than 0.05% of devices are on 4.0, 4.0.1, or 4.0.2, which is why it doesn't show up on the dashboards. Similarly, less than 0.05% of devices use 2.0 or 2.0.1, and same with 3.0.

You can safely develop for APIs 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 (as of Dec 28, 2013), and forgo the remaining nine API levels (though there is seldom a reason to). If possible, you may want to continue to support API 7 as well, since it just recently went off the dashboards. (0.05% of a billion devices is still quite a few!)

Answer 2

Google has indicated to manufacturers that android 4.0.3 should be used as the base version for ics. It also has recommended all manufacturers to provide automatic updates to 4.0.3.

I have no idea about usage statistics of devices running versions before 4.0.3, but I guess it will be a minority of the devices.