Re:I don't trust Signal
by mrguyorama on Thursday August 09, 2018 @12:51PM
(#17725903)
The permissions system that android apps use is entirely dependent on which API version you target. Last I understood, if you made a new app today and purposely chose to target an old API version, you could force it to use the "all or nothing", user hostile permissions query you described
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I believe Google is asking developers to support a recent API version to push updates to the Play Store.
Yeah - as of 1 Aug new apps or 1 Nov for updated apps - you need to "target" API level 26 (Android 8), but you can still set your minSdkVersion to whatever you like (we're still publishing version 16/Android 4.4 updated).
https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/deve...
@mrguyorama - this means you can force the old landgrab user-hostile permissions to people running old Android versions, but you cannot force them onto users running Android 8.