What version of the minSdk in the end?

[Apisov]

Starting from v1.3 the documentation says the min is 23:

For your app to work on a device, the device must be running Android version 6.0 (API
version 23) or higher

But after a few updates in this repo to v1.3 and higher it still uses 21 as the minSdk. Is this a mistake in the documentation or here?

Thank you

[corneliusroemer]

@tjohns Has there possibly been any progress on answering this question? Would be great to know. It shouldn't be too difficult to answer @Apisov's question.

[Apisov]

Well, their reference app works with EN and it still uses minSdk 21 so we could say it works for API 21 :)

[corneliusroemer]

Unfortunately it seems to be impossible to actually test this unless you are a whitelisted developer, which I am sadly not.

I'm a bit surprised that Google doesn't answer questions here. Wouldn't it help all the developers around the world trying to implement their versions?

[Apisov]

They are not very responsive indeed.

I assume, the API is still not stable so it's hard for them to say if it will work with API 21 in a week or a month.

[falkorichter]

We're using 23: https://github.com/austrianredcross/stopp-corona-android/blob/develop/app/build.gradle#L20
And the German project 23: https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-app-android/blob/master/Corona-Warn-App/build.gradle#L33

Does this help? That's a lot of reference now 😁

[corneliusroemer]

@falkorichter I figured from the repo that "we" means Austria.
I know that Germany uses 23, and I haven't heard of anyone else using anything else.

In the media and in response to questions, the German project has emphasised heavily that the decision to support only 23+ was Gapple's, not theirs! So I don't think it's very helpful to know what Germany/Austria are using. In fact, the motivation for this question is whether API 23+ is a necessity, or whether it is a choice that could be changed by implementers.

What would be very useful to know from @falkorichter is (I assume that saying "we" he is one of the few whitelisted devs) whether Austria tested API 21/22 with the exposure notification API and what the results were. If they haven't tested that yet, wouldn't it be a great experiment that could benefit a lot of people? Dropping from 23+ to 21+ may increase penetration by ~10%, causing an increase in benefit of ~20% (benefit is quadratic in adoption).

[jixiangox]

exposure-notifications-feedback@google.com

寫郵件到這個信箱，較快得到回覆

[falkorichter]

I don't know about the reasoning behind choosing 23. I'm contributing to the 🇦🇹 app, yes. But the information I provided might as well just from my observations of public repos as a curious developer 😏

[Apisov]

@falkorichter
Regarding the testing of the app with API 21:
When I said that the reference app works I meant I tested with Exposure Notification(EN) -- I happened to be a whitelisted developer.

I also tried today our app with minSdk=21 and it still works. My first guess when I saw that they increased the API was related to security. I worked on Bluetooth library for contact tracing and the reason why I raised minSdk to 23 was because of AndroidX Security library.

It was a wild and seems to be completely wrong because their preview of Nearby library doesn't force the mindSdk=23 as it would if it had mindSdk=23 in its manifest.

That being said, I believe it's safer to play by the documentation for now i.e. set minSdk to 23 even if EN works with API 21 🤷‍♂️

[treysis]

Latvia uses minSdk=21

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.spkc.gov.apturicovid

[falkorichter]

on https://developers.google.com/android/exposure-notifications/exposure-notifications-api#architecture it now states:

For your app to work on a device, the device must run Android version 6.0 (API version 23) or higher.

I guess 23 is the safe choice.

[Apisov]

Their website is essentially a copy of the last pdf file they have, so the question is still not answered because the evidence shows a different thing - it works with API 21.

But I agree that it's safer to use 23 now, however, it will be sad to switch back to 21 if you used some features from 23 already :)

[treysis]

One feature I see is individual permissions.

However, I still haven't understand what's the difference between minSdk and targetSdk (or whatever this is called exactly).