Requirement to mention Google Play services version in app's manifest

Question

Can anybody tell me why we need to mention the Google Play service's version in an app's manifest? What does Android do with this value?

Answer 1

Google continuously upgrading it's play service.But as old applications are there, so to support applications which are using old version of play service we need to spacify on what version of play service our application based.

Update:

we include google-play-service lib and the version is based on this lib not on google play service installed in our mobile. so play-service-lib jar will always be inside in our application with it's version code.So google will manage google play service request according to play-service-lib version.

we provide version of google-play-service lib in our manifest

<meta-data
        android:name="com.google.android.gms.version"
        android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version" />

and "@integer/google_play_services_version" refers to version of Lib,which is using in our application.

This is just like, We request Facebook installed application or we use Facebook Sdk with our application..Both are different things.

Hope it is clear..

Answer 2

Using the version , Google Play Store keeps a track of the number of updations done to the application and .apk file uploaded to the Developer's Console . This is applicable after the application has been Published in the Google Play Store.

If any modification is done to the application and you want to upload the .apk file to the Developer's Console to distribute it to the user , you have to change the version . Else you would not be able to upload the .apk file.

Also upgrading the version notifies the users about any changes/modifications/upgradations done the published application in the Google Play Store.