Android 15 may reportedly block some of the apps currently available on the Google Play Store or through third-party marketplaces. Google introduced several new features with the release of Android Developer Preview 2 on March 21. According to the report, the upcoming Android operating system may increase the minimum requirements for apps. Here are all the details you need to know.
According to a report by Android Police, Google has changed the software development kit (SDK) requirements and now supports a higher version. For the uninitiated, Google adds new features and security parameters to the Android ecosystem and gives developers plenty of time to meet the latest requirements. For example, with the current Android 14, developers have to target Android 6.0 or Marshmallow, which was released in 2015.
Android 6.0 was notable for requiring apps to get permission from the user to access the camera, address book, call logs, and more. According to the report, Android 15 DP2 build does not allow installing apps based on SDK 23 based on Android 6.0 on devices. Now it wants SDK version 24 which is Android 7.1.
The report showed that smartphones running Android 14 were able to install apps based on SDK 23 based on Android 6.0. However, Google Pixel 8 Pro running on Android 15 DP2 failed to install the app and got an error saying “INSTALL_FAILED_DEPRECATED_SDK_VERSION”.
It is worth mentioning that the smartphone running Android 15 DP2 also failed to load the Android 6.0 based SDK 23 based app. A message appeared saying that the app is not safe to install, and the Install Anyway button that appeared after that did nothing, and the app could not be installed.
According to the findings, it appears that apps still targeting Android 6.0 will likely stop working when Android 15 is released globally. However, it’s worth noting that there aren’t many apps currently targeting SDK 23 as developers try to update their apps to the latest Android standard.
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