What Android 5.0 Lollipop Adoption Means for Mobile Developers

In the fast‑moving mobile internet era, new technologies and concepts emerge constantly, leaving even core mobile developers feeling behind. The author, known as "Four‑Eyed Brother," uses data analysis to keep developers informed about the latest trends.

Android 5.0 (Lollipop) was officially opened to users on November 12. While media hype has faded, the author examines its current development status, especially user adoption in China.

The chart shows the change in Android 5.0 users over the past four weeks, based on data from Tencent Bugly, which covers nearly 400 million Android devices daily.

Data indicates that domestic Android 5.0 user growth is relatively fast, but the total number remains low because only Google’s Nexus series can upgrade to 5.0 at present. Major manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo are expected to support 5.0 soon, which should trigger rapid growth in the next two to three months.

Developers may wonder whether Android 5.0’s APIs remain forward‑compatible and whether apps experience more crashes on this version. The author analyzes crash data from the Tencent Bugly platform for Android 5.0.

Compared with other Android versions, the proportion of users encountering exceptions on 5.0 is not significantly different. However, those users experience a slightly higher average number of exceptions per user. This suggests that developers do not need to create special adaptations for 5.0, indicating good forward compatibility of its APIs.

Nevertheless, the analysis uncovered issues that developers should heed. Some apps use undocumented Android APIs that changed in 5.0, breaking forward compatibility. For example, the method signature of Landroid/content/pm/PackageParser changed, causing a NoSuchMethodError if called with the old parameters. Similar problems may exist with other hidden APIs, so developers must audit their code to ensure compatibility.

If you want to know how your app performs on Android 5.0, integrate Tencent Bugly now while the user base is still small, and address crashes early.