Google at its developer's blog has officially announced that version 10.0.0 of the Google Play Service framework will be the latest version that supports Android Gingerbread. The next scheduled release of GPS, version 10.2.0 will support devices which are running Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich at a minimum. This will happen in early 2017.

According to Phone Arena Google explains that the Gingerbread platform is around six years old and many developers have already stopped supporting it in their apps. By making this change, Google is able to provide a more robust collection of tools for Android developers with greater speed.

As per DigitalTrends, this doesn't mean that Gingerbread devices or apps which are already installed will stop working suddenly, the user will likely to see fewer updates as developers migrate to newer devices and version of Android. Apps will still have access to Google Play Service's older libraries, but those who has updated to 10.2.0 and newer will sure lose the Gingerbread compatibility.

Android Gingerbread was released in December 2010. It still runs on around 1.3 percent of Android devices across the globe. After this change, apps developed using SDK releases after Google Play Services version 10.0.x will not be able to connect to Google Play services on Gingerbread devices. This effectively renders the platform obsolete.

Android version 6.0 Marshmallow represents the vast majority of users, with a 30.7 percent share of the market. Android 5.1 Lollipop has the second-largest majority with 23.1 percent, and Android 4.4 KitKat comes in the third place with 21.9 percent. Latest Android updates usually need time to spread in the market.

Gingerbread wasn't the one and only version of Android to receive the ax. Honeycomb, the first tablet-optimized version of Android (3.0), will lose support, too. For more updates on tech and smartphone please keep visiting latinpost.com and share your views in the comment section below.

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