Google Play Services will stop supporting Android Gingerbread by early next year

Android 2.3 Gingerbread was released by Google back in 2010. However, it was only by December 2011 that almost 50 percent of the devices ran on Gingerbread. In the data released by Google earlier this year, it ran on roughly 2.2 percent of the devices and now the number has dropped to 1.3 percent, and finally the search giant has decided to pull the plug on Google Play services support for Gingerbread by early 2017.So, Google Play services 10.0.0 is believed to be the last to support Android 2.3 Gingerbread. And, the next scheduled release of these libraries, that is version 10.2.0, will require minimum supported API level from 9 to 14 (Android 4.0.1, Ice Cream Sandwich). "This change will happen in early 2017," Google writes in a blogpost.With this move, developers can start targeting API 14 as minimum, and no longer will have to push out updates for the six year old OS iteration. Yes, Gingerbread is a six year old version, and many developers have already discontinued support for this OS iteration in their apps. "This helps them build better apps that make use of the newer capabilities of the Android platform. For us, the situation is the same. By making this change, we will be able to provide a more robust collection of tools for Android developers with greater speed," Google explained in a blogpost.There is very rare chance that you may be still using a device running this version as the onslaught of Chinese phones has ensured easy availability of superior specs at affordable prices.