Make iNat app compatible with Android 5.0

[jamesray]

I bought this phone expecting that I could upgrade from 5.0 to 7.0 according to the specs, but I can’t so I’m going to return it for a refund. Nevertheless, it would be good to use iNaturalist for Android 5.0, although it may not be easy to do since this uses Linux kernel 3.x.

[karen33317]

You can go to APKPure and many times find older versions for apps.
https://apkpure.com/inaturalist/org.inaturalist.android
If you scroll to the bottom the first version listed V1.12.6 is compatible with Android 4 and up

[kueda]

We dropped support for Android 5 this past Fall. FWIW, we currently support Android 6-9, and I just installed Android 10 and it seems to work on that too. We don’t drop support for older versions unless some new code we write ends up being incompatible with them, and then we usually try to decide whether or not to drop support based on how old the version we’re going to drop is and how many people seem to still be using our app on that version of Android. Android 5 came out in 2014 and was succeeded by Android 6 in 2015 (Android version history). When we dropped support this Fall, about 2-3% of installs were on devices running Android 5. IMO, if an operating system is 5 years old and less than 5% of our users are still using it and we basically have one part-time developer working on the app and we have to write custom code to support just that legacy operating system, we stop supporting that operating system. People who are still using Android 5 can still install the last version that worked (1.12.6), definitely via the APK we include in our Github releases, and possibly via the Play Store (not sure, don’t have an Android 5 device to test this with).

[jamesray]

Thanks. It’s not available on Google Play. While I could download the APK file, since I bought my LG G4 phone with the expectation that I could upgrade to Android 7.0, I have the right to return the phone for a refund, which is what I’ll do after another is obtained.