Developing for Android - Marketshare, Device support.

Question

I'm about to start developing an App for Android and I was wondering what the marketshare of various devices, by OS was. Do a majority of Android phones fall under 2.1+? Or should I look to support 1.5/1.6 too?

Also, Blackberry has a really neat list of all the devices under each OS version, with their screen resolutions and other tech specs, I couldn't really find one for Android. Does Google maintain one at all?

Also, any tips that'll let me develop across multiple devices and resolutions? I didn't particularly bother about this while developing for B'Berry and it's a pain now.

Answer 1

This page is updated every couple of weeks:

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

also http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html for screen density

Answer 2

Check the Current Distribution.

There is a neat trick you can do to target every device. You need to add this to your AndroidManifest:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" android:targetSdkVersion="8" />

Search stackoverflow for this. It has been discussed in the past.