Google Play Requiring Android 9 SDK by Nov 1st 2019

support.google.com

The vast majority of users are well below Android 9 ... this will decimate my app's user base ... WFT?

Google needs to step up their game so phone OS updates are seemless ... can't wait for Fuchsia (Android replacement project) to bear fruit

As I understand it (and I might be wrong, I'm just beginning to learn mobile dev) it's only for you, as a developer — i.e. you must use the latest tools, like Apple enforces the use of the latest Xcode version. Note that for new apps this has been effective since August 1, 2019. November 1 is for app updates.

Your app can still target any version it wants; but this is to ensure that you'll implement features required for API level 28 (Android 9), so that users on a recent device can benefit from those.

Nothing more, nothing less. Thus of course we must still support Oreo and before, otherwise we'd cut >85% of the user base...

TL;DR: title-bait, misleading, not even accurate (missing "for app updates").

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