Impact of Android Customizations by device manufacturers
<p>I am trying to write an android application that uses several of the android apis(like policy manager, package manager, wifi apis etc).</p>

<p>The concern i have is, android being open, manufacturers/carriers are free to take any specific version of android as their start point and customize the same and ship it with the device.</p>

<p>Note:Please excuse me if this post is in anyway a repeat of earlier posts on the same/similar topic. In such a case, appreciate anyone sharing the earlier post.</p>

<p>Few things that bother me are:</p>

<ul>
<li>Does android enforce/require manufacturers/carriers to retain the default apis and only over-ride/customize the look-and-feel?</li>
<li>even if manufacturers change the implementation/behavior of the basic apis that comes from android, do they adhere to the interfaces so that my code doesnt break?</li>
<li>how do i ensure/test that my code works on all of the android devices since there is a possibility that one or more customizations could break my whole application?</li>
</ul>

<p>I know these are some naive questions for many of you who may have been on android for a while, but any pointers in this regard would be of immense help.</p>

<p>Any other information in general w.r.t cross version, cross device incompatibilities and strategies to deal with them would be very helpful.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot in advance.</p>

<p>Regards,
Deepak</p>
