Qt for Android usually supports a wide range of Android versions, some very old. To keep the supported versions to a level that’s maintainable by Qt, especially for LTS releases which are expected to live for three years, Qt for Android is adopting new guidelines for selecting the supported versions for a given Qt release in the hope that this effort would make the selection clear and transparent, and help shape proper expectations of support for each Qt for Android release.
We will be evaluating the need for minimum version changes once a year for the fall release of Qt, which also cover LTS releases. The aim is to cover at least 90% of the cumulative usage in the market as listed on apilevels.com around one month before the platform freeze deadline. Version changes due to technical reasons such as versions required for new features or APIs would still apply. The changes would take effect on the build system level as well, meaning trying to target older versions, while could still work with personal builds, it would fall outside of Qt's official support scope.
For the maximum supported version, for every spring Qt release, we aim to support an Android version which was released by Google in the fall of the year before.
In the scope of the Qt 6.8 release, these changes would imply the minimum supported version is Android 9 and the maximum is Android 14.
The full guidelines are detailed also under the Qt for Android Versions Selection Guidelines documentation page, any future changes to the guidelines will be incorporated there.
