if you still have a smartphone running Jelly Bean, you can say goodbye to it

The rare Android Jelly Bean smartphones still in use will soon no longer be able to benefit from Google Play Services. Clearly, they will no longer be able to benefit from the slightest application update, except in exceptional cases on the part of the developers.

Announced in June 2012, Android Jelly Bean is about to bow out. If the system has not been updated for more than 7 years anyway (the last version dates back to October 2013), Google will definitely put an end to it. Next August, Google Play Services will no longer support this old edition of Android.

From the Google Play Services version 31.30.99, Android Jelly Bean will no longer be supported. Clearly, all applications that use Play Services will no longer be able to benefit from any support or any update. This means the death of updates to applications running under the old version of the OS.

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Google drops Android Jelly Bean once and for all

This change primarily concerns developers who still use API levels 16, 17 or 18 in their SDK. Although they will still be able to use them in their development kit, they will likely encounter errors when compiling their applications. Of course, developers will still be able to compile their applications using an older version of their API. But they will also need to create it with an API level 19 or higher to be supported by Play Services.

Consequently, there is therefore a very high probability that all the developers will abandon any attempt at compatibility with Jelly Bean. Ultimately, Jelly Bean smartphone users should no longer be able to benefit from the slightest update to their applications.

In September 2020, only 0.46% of Android smartphones were still running Jelly Bean if we are to believe the statistics of Statcounter. Right now, Google itself estimates that number at less than 1%. By comparison, there are currently nearly 36% of smartphones and tablets running Android 10 and 17.5% of devices running Android 11.

Source: Google