Android Update *** Please Read

Solar2D Android
#1

All,

Effective today, March 1st, 2011, we are no longer going to support Android OS 2.1 and below.

We will now only support Android OS 2.2 and above. Android 2.2 (Froyo) accounted for 40.8% share of smart phones sold.

What does it mean for you?

We will focus on one platform rather than three to four unstable releases that are heavily fragmented. Some of your feedback as well has asked us to stop 1.6 support due to the perceived performance of your game on a 1.6 device. Also, issues between 2.0 and 2.1 and the different handsets have given us reasons to drop 2.1 and below.

I will have more details in an upcoming blog, but I thought I get this tidbit out to you sooner than later.

We have shifted focus inside of Ansca to get our Android version of Corona up to par with the iPhone version, including performance, bug fixes and bunch of other stuff that have been problematic with us due to the way the different Android OS’s behave both in terms on the different OS as well as on the hardware it runs.

This shift also includes bringing our Windows version out of beta as soon as we can so you can also start developing and submitting Android apps to the Google Marketplace as soon as possible.

Carlos

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#2

Seems like a good plan! [import]uid: 9577 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25758[/import]

#3

Great! [import]uid: 8872 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25776[/import]

#4

That’s exactly what I’ve been talking about with my friends today. On the iPhone side there are a lot of Apps that are actually developed with the Corona SDK and some of them even made it into the Top 10 Apps in the store. On the Android side, I haven’t seen any app that came even close to the top places in the market. With these changes I hope that my team, me and every other Android developer who’s using Corona SDK can finally use every feature in Corona SDK without worrying about bugs and performance issues.

Thank you for everything you do for all the Android Devs :slight_smile:

xDee [import]uid: 8121 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25786[/import]

#5

Sounds like a great idea. [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25789[/import]

#6

Hi,
I’m actually concerned about it, as I work on a game which I test on 2.1 and it works as it should. There are many devices with 2.1 and I would not like to lose this part of the market. My question is: Will export be just terminated for 1.6 and 2.1 or some new functions won’t just work. As I really would like to make the game so it can run on 2.1. Please let me know.
cheers
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#7

Carlos stated it clearly. 1.6 and 2.1 will be droped. You won’t be able to export for it anymore. A while ago they have dropped 1.5. After that you could not export to it anymore either. [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25864[/import]

#8

Would you be able to export using older builds of Corona? [import]uid: 4596 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25866[/import]

#9

“Android 2.2 (Froyo) accounted for 40.8% share of smart phones sold.”
This is very lov Android market share at this moment…
I have two Android phones (LG Swift 540 and Moto Milestone, both with Android 2.1) which probably never get official Android 2.2…

IMHO this is very, very bad Ansca decision (especially drop 2.1 support) :frowning: [import]uid: 34239 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25910[/import]

#10

I would rather have a working 2.2 than a non working 2.1 [import]uid: 9577 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25912[/import]

#11

Question to Staff. Is it possible to have option for 2.1 build even without some of the features? I would be even happy to have it with the current state as my game works fine.

Cheers [import]uid: 27699 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25918[/import]

#12

Android 2.3 was really the first to be designed with games in mind from what i have read. Its probally best to make these sacrifises now. [import]uid: 24981 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25933[/import]

#13

I can understand this decision. As somebody said, I’d much rather have a *working* game on 2.2 than something for 1.6 that just doesn’t work.

I take issue with the statement that “Android 2.3 was the first designed with games in mind”. Whether or not that is true, I have lots of games on Android 2.2 (and even 2.1) that work perfectly fine on my DroidX at high performance. Many of these are ports from iPhone apps. Some are very graphics intensive (see various GameLoft games for examples).

My only concern is that I was already selecting 2.2 as my Android build target and my app was still slow and buggy. So was there something in Corona that was messing up the 2.2 builds because of some kind of 1.6 code still being used? Or does this decision just mean they can focus on doing things better without worrying about backwards compatibility. I’m assuming it’s the later.

Anything done to improve Corona on Android is a good thing. And while it’s annoying that the 2.2 is only 40% of phone, that number is increasing very quickly. I just hope something can be done *quickly* to address this issue. I have to make my decision about a cross-platform development system this month and I hope it’s not to late for Corona to show a big improvement to Android in that time period.

Finally, I also agree that the current build should somehow be kept around (just not supported) for people whose apps work just fine on 2.1. Or if there is any way to just drop 1.6 and still support 2.1. Honestly, I didn’t see a whole lot in the 2.2 update over 2.1 on my DroidX that should really effect Corona apps, but I’m no expert. [import]uid: 12529 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25965[/import]

#14

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html#gaming

Heres some reading material to the improvements Android 2.3 has for gaming [import]uid: 24981 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 25966[/import]

#15

Great!! [import]uid: 21055 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 26098[/import]

#16

Just another question, asking if 2.1 support will still be available using a previous build?

We’re half-way through a client project, and 2.1 support is a requirement in the specification. Suddenly removing support for 2.1 would be a disaster for us.

Just to be clear - I’m in favour of dropping 2.1 support for future iterations, as long as those of us who need to will still be able to build for 2.1 for legacy apps.

Any feedback would be gratefully (and urgently!) received.

Thanks [import]uid: 25851 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 26181[/import]

#17

We are *not* going to remove it and leaving you dangling. The new versions will not support 2.1. But we don’t expect everyone to “upgrade” the instant we ship. … Does that make sense?

So if you have CoronaSDK with 2.1 support, we will *not* kill it the instant we ship.

We will have a grace period so people can upgrade.

C. [import]uid: 24 topic_id: 7325 reply_id: 26193[/import]

#18

Fantastic - thank you Carlos.

So just to confirm, current versions of CoronaSDK will continue to allow us to build for 2.1, but support for this version of the OS will be dropped from future versions to allow Ansca to concentrate on building fully-featured and stable Android support.

Sounds good to me - thank you.
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#19

@lowpitch

We will have a grace period so people can upgrade.

This sounds to me that they will drop it later on.

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#20

Boy we saw this coming eh :wink:

Here’s what I have to say about it.
I think it’s understandable to only support the newer version of Android OS from a 3rd party developer SDK perspective. It’s too time consuming to build interpreter after interpreter onto an already difficult and busy platform with no real standards. Anyone who is savvy to programming on the native Android SDK knows it’s beyond buggy all by itself.

But, I personally which there were a “dumbing down” feature with Corona and that we could keep the 1.6 compatibility with ‘known limitations.’

Even though 2.2 is a more stable OS the simple fact of the matter is as a developer targeting only 2.2, I know that I’ll be missing a lot of phone demographic running older versions of Android.

Case Study

We run and internal ad engine in some of our apps and capture around 300,000 impressions every day of different phones from around the world using our apps. With that analytical data we can see screen size, OS version ,etc. In our experience over half of the users are on 2.1 and below.

It’s a sad reality but not everyone upgrades their phone the minute, day, month, or even year that Google releases an OS upgrade. And some phones just can’t run anything faster than 1.6.

We have several apps that are widely popular and don’t need functionality that 2.2 and above offers. I think some of our apps popularity comes from the fact we target lower Android OS phones.

In summary, I do wish there were a 1.6 compatibility mode with known limitations - along with a full blown 2.2 (no limits) build version.
Richard
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