
From Nov, All Android App Updates in Play Store Must Target Android 8.0 - jarofgreen
https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/develop/target-sdk
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jarofgreen
Note this is _target_ not minimum. People can still release apps that will
work on older versions of Android.

However, you must "target" Android 8. Targeting a version of Android in your
app is basically Android's way of making backwards compatibility work, and
it's been great. The Android OS will present certain features to your app
based on what version you tell it you are targeting.

eg. Android 6.0 introduces optional permissions. Android before that made
users agree to all permissions at install time. To make sure that all the old
apps suddenly didn't break, what version your app targets controls what system
of permissions your app uses.

However, this was a problem. Bad actors could avoid optional permissions
simply by targeting a Android version lower than 6! I guess that's why Google
is pulling this move - so that in the future no-one can opt out of the
restrictions.

See the O.P. for far more on what this affects, but this means:

    
    
      *  optional permissions
      *  background restrictions
      *  a worse Android ID so tracking is more private
    

(Also note, this applies to new updates released only. Older releases will
continue to work. So not all apps in the Play Store will switch instantly)

