Dark mode and sun-setting Android 4 support

In the next release we plan to introduce dark mode for Android 9 and 10 devices. It will have a dark, light and System (as in, follow what Android does) mode.

Until now, we’ve been keeping CanZE compatible with API level 15, meaning Android 4.0.3. For reference, we’re talking Samsung S2 era, early 2012 phones. To make dark mode work without over-complicating the code, we have to let go of supporting Android 4 and make API level 21 the minimum requirement. These are late 2014/early 2015 phones. The number of active users below API level 21 is approximately 2.5% of the active users, so we feel this is a fair compromise.

The sun-setting of Android 4 support has been announced starting today in the news bar. If you run CanZE on an Android 4 device it will no longer receive updates, but it will still run the older versions.

3 Comments on “Dark mode and sun-setting Android 4 support

  1. This is a very bad idea!
    I don’t need a dark theme (where I cannot read dark blue text on gray background), but a better communication between the ELM ant the App would be welcome.
    And NO I will not bye a new tablet because I am sadly in the 1% of canze users.

    • Either opinion is relative, and fine of course. Nobody suggested you should get new hardware. We are simply moving on.

      If I am not mistaken your phone/tablet will simply stop updating to newer versions, it will not “kill” your current instance. If it does/has, let us know.

  2. I habe updated my old Galaxy S4 mini from Samsung Android 4.4.2 to Lineage OS, latest release, which is Android 9. Maybe there is a newer Software available for your device as well?