Google will end its support for Android Jelly Bean after they launch Play Services version 21.30.99 which will be released at the end of August.
In a post on the official blog Google explains why they took this step. According to them, Android Jelly Bean, which was released in 2012, now has very few users, less than 1% of the total active Android devices.
With so few users, Google felt the need to spend more resources and developer time to support Jelly Bean.
Android Jelly Bean has three versions, namely 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3, and has API levels 16 to 18. To continue to support Play Services, Google recommends developers to upgrade their API level to at least level 19 which is used in Android Kit Kat .
"Android devices with API levels below 19 are a very small percentage. We believe that these older devices are no longer actively used," Google wrote.
"If your app still has significant users on older devices, you can use the many APK supports on Google Play to provide APKs that use Google Play Services 21.30.99," continued Google.
Based on statistical data exhibited in Android Studio, Android 10 is currently used on 8% of devices, followed by Android Pie with around 30% of users, and Android Oreo with around 20% of users.
Meanwhile, according to StatCounter, 34.3% of Android phones and tablets on the market are already using Android 10. This data was collected from February 2020 to February 2021.
This achievement is not surprising considering that Google requires all Android phones launched in 2020 to use Android 10. But older versions of Android still dominate the market.
In second place is Android 9.0 Pie which is used by 20.59% of Android devices in the market. While in February 2020, this operating system ranked first with a percentage of 35.2%.
Additionally, there is Android 8.1 Oreo running on 15.4% of Android users in the market. Other older versions of Android such as Nougat, Marshmallow, Lollipop and KitKat are also still found, but their usage rate is already very small in the single digits.
Android 10 is also the most popular version worldwide with a market share of 41%. This operating system also ranks at the top such as Europe and Asia where the use of Android 11 is still relatively slow.
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