Google shared today that Play services is dropping support for Android 4.4 KitKat, which is nearly 10 years old, in August.
When Android devices stop getting monthly OS updates, they continue to receive new versions of Google Play services for quite some time. This backend service powers a slew of capabilities that Google makes available to app developers, while there are also a number of first-party features powered by it. This includes Google Prompt 2-Step Verification and backup.
The Android KitKat (KK) platform was first released ~10 years ago and since then, we’ve introduced many innovative improvements and features for Android, which are unavailable on KK.
As of July 2023, Google says the “active device count on KK is below 1%.” As such, it’s “no longer supporting KK in future releases of Google Play services” beyond 23.30.99 next month. KitKat, with its prominent dessert name, launched in October of 2013 so Google support is ending just shy of a decade.
Play services is specifically dropping support for API levels 19 and 20. One thing of note is that API level 20 was specifically for the initial release of Android Wear.
The last time Google ended Play services support for a release was in 2021 with Android Jelly Bean (API level 16-18). At the time, Google explained how maintaining years-long support requires “increased developer and QA time spent on new features that require special handling.”
More on Google Play services:
[Fixed] Apps repeatedly crashing for some Pixel owners, similar to Android WebView bug
July Google System Updates: Google Wallet sharing, more
Smart Lock becoming ‘Extend Unlock’ as Wear OS Watch Unlock ‘upgrade’ requires Android 13
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