Google stops Play Services support for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Google is ending support for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by Google Play Services. The move means that users will no longer get updates for Google Play Services and other apps may also stop working after updates.

According to the Android development team, it has been seven years since Android Ice Cream Sandwich came out and the market share of active devices with the software has fallen below 1 percent for a while. In practice, this concerns 0.3 percent of all Android devices. The Verge calculates that this means that it could still potentially be 6 million devices.

Now that support ends, Android 4.0 devices will not get the update to the Play Services apk 14.7.99 or later versions. Developers should now target at least API level 16 for compatibility, aka Android Jelly Bean. With older API levels they can run into build errors. The three Jelly Bean versions with API levels 16 to 18 together still had a market share of 3 percent in October.