Pleco support: Choose Lollipop or Marshmallow?

[Wan]

Hi folks

Getting a new phone, and deciding which version of Android to use. On my current phone (running Android 4.0.1), certain functions are not available. Is there any reason for choosing Marshmallow (6) over Lollipop (5), with regard to Pleco functionality or future support (say, within the next 12 months)?

 

[mikelove]

To be honest, Marshmallow didn't change that much (was a low-key release, similar to iOS 9); biggest features were an overhauled permissions system, which doesn't really matter if you were already OK with our use of permissions on 4, "Now on Tap," which only works well if you're a hardcore Google person, and slightly more efficient battery usage, which is nice but makes much less of a difference than the hardware itself does. Also the ability to 'adopt' an SD card and have it treated like internal memory. But for Pleco purposes it didn't really add much of anything.

And it's currently only running on 2.6% of our installed devices, and even that is more than double the 1.2% it's running on Google-Play-wide, so it'll be quite a few years before you see any apps requiring Marshmallow, and even in the next year I don't expect developers to spend a lot of time taking advantage of its new features (many - including us - haven't even taken advantage of everything in Lollipop yet).

 

[Wan]

Thanks for your reply. I was asking because there are so many ROMs to choose from, but for a slightly older device (got myself a cheap Galaxy S4 mini) the Marshmallows aren’t quite ripe yet. I’ll stick to Lollipop then!