Find out which version of Android your apps support

AppChecker - List APIs of Apps is a free application for Android that displays which version of Android each installed application supports.

Android is quite the fragmented operating system which can be attributed to several factors. First, it is the pace in which new operating system updates are released, and the -- often -- lacking manufacturer support for released smartphones and devices.

Even Google itself offers only two years worth of upgrades for its devices, and while you may be able to install new Android versions using ROMs, manufacturer support is usually quite bad on Android.

The same can be said for applications. Apps have a minimum and maximum Android version they support. That's the reason why some apps won't install on your device.

Things can also turn out badly if you install a new Android version on a device, as some apps may be incompatible with it or features that have changed.

Appchecker Android application compatibility

AppChecker is a free application for Android -- with advertisement and in-app purchase offers -- that lists the Android version that all user-installed or system applications support.

The application is easy to use. Simply install it from Google Play or a third-party repository and run it afterwards.

It displays the list of user-installed applications on the device it is run on. Each app is listed with its name and version, and the Android version it has been optimized for. As you can see on the screenshot above, the version can differ significantly between different applications.

A TargetAPI that is higher than the one of the Android device, or lower, does not necessarily mean that an application won't run. It can however be the case that certain features are not supported by the app on the device, or that existing features may not work anymore.

Apart from listing all installed applications, you may also list system apps as well. Simply tap on the menu icon and check the "show system apps" option of the menu that opens.

There you may also switch to displaying versions as number instead of codenames.

Another option that you have is to load a pie chart that highlights the distribution. This is shown on the screenshot on the right. You may use the slider at the top to filter out some versions of Android automatically.

How do the stats on my Android device look like? Only 17.4% of all apps have Android Nougat as the TargetAPI, 34.8% Android Marshmallow, and almost 50% older versions of Android. Adding system apps to it, the situation looks even worse. Android Gingerbread (version 2.3 - 2.7) enters the stats, a version of Android released in 2010.

Closing Words

AppChecker is a useful application for Android. You can use it to check how many of your applications are already optimized for a particular version of Android. This may be useful prior to installing a system update that upgrades the Android operating system on the device to a newer version.

It may also help you find out which developers keep up with new Android releases, and which don't.

Now You: How do the application stats look like on your Android device?

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