New Android APIs do not work in the previous versions of Android, so the Android Compatibility Package was thus introduced to allow the porting of the new APIs to the older versions of the Android platform. This chapter shows how we can use the Android Compatibility Package.
The topics covered in this chapter are as follows:
- What is and why do we use the Android Compatibility Package
- How to use the Android Compatibility Package
Android has some great new APIs released with Android 3.0 and its later versions. However, many users don't upgrade their devices to the latest Android platform. Google released the Android Compatibility Package that contains support for some of the new APIs released with Android 3.0 and its later versions. In this way, developers could develop applications that use new APIs and work in older Android versions. Some of the classes that are included in the Android Compatibility Package are as follows:
FragmentFragmentManagerFragmentTransactionListFragmentDialogFragmentLoaderManagerLoaderAsyncTaskLoaderCursorLoader
Some useful APIs such as animation classes, action bar, and FragmentMapActivity are not included in the Android Compatibility Package.