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Re: Android OS version

for

From: joe@a11yeval.com
Date: Jan 22, 2020 2:06PM

Hi Glen,

Hope you are well.

These are fully up to date, but here are the official stats for all users
regardless of disability

https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards

Thankx,
Joe Humbert

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen
walker
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 3:46 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Android OS version

The WebAIM survey (https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey8/) is a
nice resource but doesn't have granular details on OS versions. Does anyone
have any metrics on what version OS Android users are using?

iOS is a little more stable as far as version numbers. You're almost forced
to upgrade iOS. Sure you can delay the upgrade, but at some point things
might stop working. I think iOS users in general run with the latest and
there seems to be a clear division of which devices can support the latest
OS. For example, iPhone 6 and lower is limited to iOS 12.
Everything else can be iOS 13.

With Android, it seems to be pretty disparate. There are so many brands and
many models within the same brand. People seem to be using Android 5 to
Android 10.

One of the reasons I'm asking is because in Android 9, a feature was added
in the app APIs to allow headings (android:accessibilityHeading). Native
iOS apps have had headings for a while but it's somewhat new for Android.
(Android 9 came out in Aug 2018 so it's a year and half old.)

When testing a native Android app, if something looks like a heading, it'd
be nice to have the semantics of a heading. If the team that developed the
app is using Android 8 or less, they don't have that option. If they're
using 9 or above, they do. But if the user has Android 8 or less, they
can't take advantage of it.

When testing native iOS apps, I'll report a 1.3.1 issue if a heading is not
used when visually it looks like a heading because it can easily be fixed
and all users will benefit from it. For native Android apps, I'm not sure
if it should be reported. It is an issue so should probably be reported but
quite often nothing can be done about it (if the dev team is using Android 8
or lower).
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