Can one Android app have different versions for different devices at the same time?

Question

I noticed that for some apps in Google Play, their "CURRENT VERSION" says "Varies with device". Does anybody know what it means exactly? Does it mean that the developer needs to manually make different versions for the same app? If so, is it because of API backward compatibility or vendor specific things?

It seems that Android suggests to use reflection or wrapper classes to deal with API backward compatibility - http://developer.android.com/resources/articles/backward-compatibility.html. So maybe it's the latter case?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is a feature of Google Play (formerly Android Market). You can publish different .apk files (including different versions of the app) for different configurations. This includes not only API levels, but other device characteristics. You can have one version for tablet-size devices and another for smaller screens; or one for devices with a keyboard and one for devices without; etc.

If the developer were using reflection, there would only be one .apk file and Google Play would show a definite app version.

Answer 2

Multiple APK Support

Multiple APK support is a feature on Google Play that allows you to publish different APKs for your application that are each targeted to different device configurations. Each APK is a complete and independent version of your application, but they share the same application listing on Google Play and must share the same package name and be signed with the same release key. This feature is useful for cases in which your application cannot reach all desired devices with a single APK.