Is there a way to upgrade API Level on an older Android device (donut)?

android api upgrade donut-chart
cezarlamann picture cezarlamann · Feb 24, 2013 · Viewed 10k times · Source

After googling everywhere with no goal, I wanna ask something to you, Android devs:

Is there a way of upgrading (compiling the APIs or else) the API level of an older Android version (like Donut), to a more "usable" level (like one found on Eclair or Froyo)?

My scenario: I have an pretty old Galaxy I7500, running Galax0 (Donut-1.6), and just wanna have some fun/programming/low-level programming on it. I know all the struggles (since it has only ~96 Mb of real usable memory, so I'll have to train my algorithm optimization skills), but since I said that "I wanna have some fun", it includes using some more recent apps.

If not possible port the APIs natively, Is there a way to include them inside my app payload?

An Android Dev called Drakaz forked an CM (Froyo and GB) and built for this device, but Galax0 still performs better, so that's the reason I wanna port newer APIs to this elder Android version.

And yes, I have another device to play too (with ICS) =).

Any Ideas?

Answer

Raghav Sood picture Raghav Sood · Feb 24, 2013

Android APIs are not simple jars that you can just update. The Android API a device has corresponds to the version of Android they have installed. In fact, they're the same thing (technically speaking. Name wise, API levels are meant for developers). There is a list of API level:Android version here.

In short, you cannot update the API level of a device without updating the version of Android on it.

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