Massive (!) reduction of supported Android devices in 10.4
I just observed that my Android app suffered a MASSIVE decrease of compatible devices after a new release with 10.4.2, compared to 10.3.3.
Please see attached screenshots from Google Play's "Release Dashboard":
App bundle 2.9.3.1 (compiled with Delphi 10.3.3. CE) was still compatible with 18.885 devices.
10 month later, I released an update with Delphi 10.4.2 CE which was only compatible with 6702 devices!
Do you experience the same with your apps?
Or what do you do to maintain device compatibility?
Does SDK version has something to do with it?
Please note also file size.
In order to satisfy users, that could not install the newer versions, I compiled a 32 bit .apk and placed it on my website. It does the job but that cannot be the solution.
Thank you, Dave! Changing %minSdkVersion% value in AndroidManifest.template.xml in combination with adapting NDK settings as per your (quoted) article increased the number of supported devices greatly! I tried platform android-19 fist, but that threw an error, so I settled with android-21.
It should be stressed that changing only %minSdkVersion%, as suggested by Philipp, does not do the job, as this "fakes" an environment which strictly doesn't exist.
My substantial main error though was, that I deleted target platform Android 32 bit from project manager in app version 2.10, caused by my misunderstanding of Google's policy, that apps have to support 64 bit from last August on. That does NOT mean, that app bundles should not also include a 32 bit package! Older devices obviously only accept 32 bit apps.
Now, with re-installed Android 32 platform and android-21 NDK platform settings, I am back to 17.463 devices. 🙂
