Get your App in the Google Play store before August 1, 2018

Google is changing its requirements for the target SDK API level. Starting from August 1st any new app uploaded to the Play Store must target API level 26 (Android 8.0). If you have an existing app in the Play Store you’ll have some more time, as updates to the app must only meet this same requirement on November 1st.

This means that if you are currently developing a new Delphi Android App you should consider uploading it into the Play Store before August 1st. Why? The current version of Delphi uses a target SDK of API level 14. If you upload your new app now, this buys you some time until November 1st to become API level 26 compliant with an app update.

I’m working on an API level 26 issue right now, where I’m extending the JContext of Delphi with some of the new API level 26 features for starting a foreground service. This is needed to comply with the new background execution limits introduced in Oreo. This works quite well, and does not require a lot of code.

If you can not upload your app to the Play Store before August 1st, then this blog post from Dave at Delphi Worlds may help you further. It changes some of the Delphi code to achieve (partial) API level 26 compliance.