Google ends support for Android Ice Cream Sandwich: Here's what it means

Google has announced that it is dropping support for its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for future Play Service API releases. This means that version 14.7.99 will become the last Google Play services API 14 and 15 to run on Android 4.0 to Android 4.0.4. However, this might not make that much of a big dent in the overall Android install base support as currently, less than 0.5 percent of all active Android devices run Android 4.0 to Android 4.0.4.

Google with this announcement has made API level 16, which supports Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and above as the minimum level of support. Developers if willing can continue to support and maintain their apps for Android Ice Cream Sandwich users, but that seems a bit unlikely.

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The apps that drop support for Android Ice Cream Sandwich will still be available on Google's Play Store in the form of forked pre and post entries. This also means many other apps that depend upon Google Play Services might seize to work at the same time.

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Just to recap, it has been over seven years since Google first made Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich available to the public. It was one of the major redesigns Google made to its Android operating system. As of now the active number of users has slumped by a lot, out of which most of the users might not even use these devices as their daily drivers.