Ionic, Crosswalk and Android Lollipop, how to handle apks?

HriBB · June 15, 2015, 8:27pm

What is the best way to handle multiple APKs for Google Play Store with Ionic and crosswalk?

I want to create 3 versions

app-lollipop.apk (no crosswalk)
app-pre-lollipop-x86.apk (with crosswalk)
app-pre-lollipop-armv7.apk (with crosswalk)

I want devices with Lollipop to load app-lollipop.apk.
I want devices before Lollipop to load app-pre-lollipop-arch.apk.

Any ideas on how to configure Ionic project to handle this?

ohh2ahh · June 16, 2015, 8:00am

I use the same approach with one of my apps, here is my workflow. Unfortunately it’s a little bit time-consuming.

Add android-minSdkVersion in config.xml for minimum supported API level (Crosswalk versions only).
```
<preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="16"/>
```
Add Crosswalk: $ ionic browser add crosswalk
Build Crosswalk APKs for x86 and armv7: $ ionic build android --release (APKs located in project/platforms/android/build/outputs/apk)
Remove Crosswalk: $ ionic browser revert android
Build APK for Android 5+: $ ionic build android --release -- --minSdkVersion 21 (APK located in same directory)
Sign, upload (advanced mode in Google Play Developer Console) and publish all APKs

Suggestions and improvements are more than welcome

dblanchard · July 14, 2015, 3:48pm

Someone also posted some scripts to help with this over on github.

Would be great to get this integrated into the CLI.

shankari · July 7, 2017, 1:28am

I’ve been doing this for a while, but I recently noticed from the google play console that the
app-pre-lollipop-x86.apk is preferred for the install, even for newer versions. Are others seeing this too?
How do you get around it?