I'm never a fan of deprecation but it is what it is I guess. 4/10.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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Latest android is what, 15 now? I'd say supporting the last 8 versions, going back to 2017, is a pretty long support window.
Edit: also, the oldest maintained android version is 13. Older versions aren't getting security fixes.
It's impressive that some people keep a phone in good condition for that long and actively use it still. Even if the phone launched with android 7, I'd hope it at least would get an Android 8 update. Meaning a lot of phones meeting this criteria are even older.
Otoh, the fact that security update support only lasts a couple years is pretty sad. Honestly didn't realize how long it's been since my phone got a security update (currently android 11, originally launched with 10). Been meaning to swap to lineage or e/OS, but never got around to it, so thanks for the reminder.
Devices that run a7 are still pretty capable though.
Also security patch retrofitting and Project Mainline still exist.
Well, you're free to patch support for your ancient OS back in. But you can't expect someone else to do it for free.
I'm in the custom ROM community and people there do it sometimes. Also in case you didn't know, not everyone can afford new phones.
I get that. But that doesn't mean you can demand someone else investing a lot of time in what is commonly unpaid work.
I'm not demanding anything. If there's an issue with supporting older versions, it's fine.
If you patch your own OS, you can also build the app yourself with the lower target.
That means the app still technically supports lower targets and the deprecation is meaningless.
I'm not saying it'll work. I don't know if the app does anything that necessitates the higher version requirement. It may work perfectly, it may not work at all, or it may work with some things bugging out/crashing. All I'm saying is if you know how to patch your OS, rebuilding the app with a changed target is not going to be very difficult.
My bet is that as of today, recompiling the app with nothing changed except a reduced version requirement will probably work fine. However, over time as features are added or rewritten, it'll get progressively harder to maintain that A7 patch.