Question

I have an Android app that has a minimum API level of 4 (Android 1.6) and I have some users who use this version of Android. However, I would like to implement a feature that uses NFC, which requires Android 3 or higher (API level 9+). This means that I would have to change the minimum API level in my manifest file, which will alienate users using older versions of Android. So is there a way to programmatically disable the feature that uses NFC if the device is incompatible and still allow the use of other features instead of locking out users using older versions of Android?

Answer 1

Set the min-sdk to 4 and the target-sdk to 9 and use something like this in your code:

if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB){
  //your API-9 specific code here
}else{
 // an alternative code
}

this for the java part, in XML the newer attributes are ignored so its safe to add what you need