
Ending support for Android Market on Android 2.1 and lower - AndrewDucker
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/06/ending-support-for-android-market-on.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/hsDu+(Android+Developers+Blog)&m=1
======
jtreminio
Semi-related, I've got an iPad 1st gen, and wanted to gift it to my nieces in
El Salvador for school work.

So, I wiped it, hoping to give them a blank slate to install whatever they
need.

I wish I hadn't - I could find absolutely nothing to install on the device
from the Apple Store. Everything requires new iOS version (which is fine, of
course), but I also can't install old versions of software on the iPad.

Basically, I screwed myself by wiping the device because now the default, pre-
installed apps are the only apps that will ever run on this thing again.

~~~
eugeniub
Are you sure? IIRC when I played with my old iPhone 3Gs (older than iPad)
earlier this year, I could still install the old versions of apps, even if the
new ones required higher iOS versions.

I kinda have to question the value of giving someone a 7 year old device with
a $50 market value that can't run any modern apps. Why not just send her $50
to buy a new Android tablet that probably runs whatever she needs?

~~~
jtreminio
I tried most of Google's offerings, iPad refused to install them.

> I kinda have to question the value of giving someone a 7 year old device

The device is perfectly usable. The battery life is still great on it, the
screen is unscratched, it runs school-related apps just fine (or, did). What
am I supposed to do with the thing now? Just junk it?

edit: I ended up giving them an Android tablet. I still have this iPad, and
would love to at least give it to an organization that can hand it off to
someone in need. Something inside me absolutely balks at the idea of throwing
away a perfectly usable, modern device just because the parent company turns a
blind eye to it.

~~~
Retric
It's 5 years old which is when a lot of corporate computers end up in the junk
heap even if they are still running.

~~~
Cyph0n
Why are you comparing a personal tablet to a corporate computer? Consumer
needs and expectations are vastly different from those of businesses.

------
barbs
To be clear - this doesn't mean that you can no longer install apps on Android
2.1 and lower, just that you can't use Android Market/Google Play. It's pretty
easy to sideload APKs, and the development tools still provide for Android 2.1
and lower. Of course, you lose the convenience and relative malware protection
that Google Play offers, but if ease-of-use and/or security are primary
concerns you shouldn't be using a 7.5 year-old operating system anyway.

Also, they don't show versions lower than 2.3 on this graph, but I think it's
fair to assume that the user share for 2.1 is far lower than 2.3's 0.8%
[https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html).

In short, this isn't a big problem at all.

~~~
cesarb
> Also, they don't show versions lower than 2.3 on this graph, but I think
> it's fair to assume that the user share for 2.1 is far lower than 2.3's 0.8%
> [https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html).

The graph legend says they don't show versions with user share lower than
0.1%, so one could infer that the user share for 2.1 is <0.1%, _but_ they also
say that this graph only shows "devices that visited the Google Play Store in
the prior 7 days". Devices which haven't connected to Google's servers
recently (for instance, because they don't have an Internet connection) aren't
counted.

And while the development tools still allow developers to target older
releases, there were large API changes in Android 3 and 4 (these were the
versions which added tablet support), so developers often will target only API
level 14 (Android 4) and above.

------
JohnTHaller
For context, Android Eclair 2.1 was released 7.5 years ago. Android Froyo 2.2,
which succeeded it, was released 7 years ago and is still supported by the
Google Play Store.

~~~
synicalx
Not necessarily a good thing, encouraging people to use software that's been
unpatched and out of date for at least 5 years.

~~~
PostOnce
The problem is that support for hardware ends far too soon. We're about to hit
a transistor size wall; it doesn't make sense to spend $500 on a phone that is
functionally equivalent to your old one just to get a software update.

Why can you run a cutting edge commercial OS on a 12 year old PC but not a 2
year old phone?

You wouldn't buy a $500 washing machine, microwave, or oven that only lasted 2
years, but you're expected to do so for a phone?

~~~
zanny
> Why can you run a cutting edge commercial OS on a 12 year old PC but not a 2
> year old phone?

Because Windows isn't open source.

That is absolutely the answer. Because hardware manufacturers couldn't just
take Windows and recompile the kernel for their own custom hardware they _had_
to support the IBMPC standard bios interfaces and ACPI.

With Android, when hardware manufacturers can _get away with_ not
standardizing the hardware platform to be OS generic, they make custom shit
blobs they stick in a Linux kernel and leave for dead after 2 years.

Because it sells new devices. If you could keep an old S3 updated to the
latest Android effortlessly there would be no artificial software based
pressure to buy a new phone as long as you still liked the old one.

I actually find it really fascinating that it seems that hardware vendors are
aggressively trying to create new modes of planned obsolescence as Google
ramps up efforts to reduce their ability to abandon updates. User
irreplaceable batteries are the biggest one to me, where vendors take the
extra step to be truly devious and make hard-to-access batteries in sealed
phones actually impossible to replace because they either solder the battery
in or make it break the connectors when you try to remove it.

------
Brian_K_White
Everyone keeps saying "7.5 years old" as though that is the only fact that
matters.

I happen to like my Nook Glowlight. I have a newer Kobo also, but, like all
the new ereaders, it lacks hardware page-turn buttons, and microsd slot.

In the case of that Nook, I did in fact root it and already had to side-load
apps anyway, since it only runs android 1.6. So, don't bother telling me how
to make my Nook work. It's not about me or my Nook. It's about this idiotic
response that no one could possibly have any legitimate reason to run 7 year
old software.

You know what? I'd LOVE to run new software on my 7 year old DEVICE. But they
don't bother to make current software compatible with old devices.

It would be incredibly inconsiderate to demand it, but I'd even _almost_
swallow "just get a new device", except they don't make new devices that have
the same features as the old device. For instance that Nook. New nooks and all
other ereaders lack the features I specifically valued about that one.

There are countless examples of features that you want, that devices have only
one time or for a short while, and then not again. Hardware buttons, sdcard
slot, removable battery, headphone jack, (conversely, headphones with a cord
that plugs into anything, how do you use airbuds with your roku remote? ),
size that actually fits in your hand even if you're a small woman, special
museum glass anti-reflective screen (vaio tz laptop), or literally countless
other features that someone else decides you no longer need.

Meaning there are countless examples of why someone might actually want to run
" _gasp_ 7 year old software omg I think I just threw up in my mouth..."

------
MBCook
I understand the OS is seven years old but only 10 days notice still seems
kind of short.

------
JadeNB
Yet another reason to be thrilled, as an Android user, that my ability to
upgrade is held hostage to my phone vendor's willingness to package it. Google
has so much weight to throw around, and seems to recognise the _problem_ with
fragmentation; why do they only ever take such half-hearted steps to combat
it?

~~~
askvictor
Choose a phone that can be unlocked/rooted and a custom/pure Android that can
be installed. At least you have that option for Android; unlike iOS.

~~~
xbmcuser
Won't help if the hardware manufacture does not support the newer hardware
even google itself has had to stop updating a few devices because of no
hardware support by qualcomm or Nvidia. Though google is trying to change with
it latest version of Android.

~~~
JadeNB
> Won't help if the hardware manufacture does not support the newer hardware
> even google itself has had to stop updating a few devices because of no
> hardware support by qualcomm or Nvidia.

To be fair, at that point my complaint about Google and phone manufacturers is
kind of irrelevant ….

> Though google is trying to change with it latest version of Android.

How can software change hardware support? (That sounds snarky, but I'm
serious.)

------
tanilama
Android 2.1 is probably not usable at this point anyway.

------
dirtylowprofile
Please include Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean.

------
duncan_bayne
[https://xkcd.com/743/](https://xkcd.com/743/)

This (planned obsolescence) is what you get when you buy closed hardware
running proprietary software.

