📖 Tutorial How to make apps requiring high/newer Android versions install on older Android versions

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Sbenny

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If you ever happened to see apps requiring Android 5.0, 6.0 or even higher and you just own a older smartphone and you're not willing to buy a new one, you have now a valid and simple alternative, by hacking the apk file. This is also useful for modders who are willing to make the modded app compatible with lower spec devices.

You could get errors like "Error parsing the Package" or "The apk is not compatible to current system version" or similar ones, they all mostly refers to the fact your Android version doesn't match the minimum version required from the app.

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I'm probably not the first to discover this trick and I think it's been discussed already somewhere else, but I think I simplified it a bit, so here's my way to make android apps compatible with lower Android versions.

Difficulty: Easy
Time required: Around 3 minutes
Skills required:
This trick requires a basic Android modding knowledge.


1) You'll have to decompile the apk (I prefer apktool), so just decompile it:

apktool d "name of the apk file.apk" and press Enter (or if you use other tools simply decompile it the way you know).

2) Once the app is decompiled, open the folder of the decompiled apk, and open the file AndroidManifest.xml. This file controls many settings of the app, including permissions and has the ability to override defined values since it has higher priority, so we're going to add a simple line in this file to specify a minimum Android version required to install the apk file:

Code:
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="9" />
This line specifically tells to the package installer of every Android device to install the app only if the Android version is 2.3 or higher (you can see the full list of SDK version numbers here: Codenames, Tags, and Build Numbers | Android Open Source Project).

3) You can place this line at the second line of the file, like in the following screenshot:

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4) Once done, as usual, recompile and resign the apk file and we're done :)

When you'll try to install it now, it'll finally work!


A few notes to mention: some apps have a valid reason to require a higher Android version such as the fact the app has enhanced graphics, so it requires a high-end device, or similar, so this doesn't guarantee you'll be able to properly run the game. It'll only guarantee you'll be able to install the app without errors.

I hope it helps :)
 
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