The Android compatibility libraries are a godsend. Sure, your users won't run the latest version of Android for a year or two at least, but you can use almost every new Android feature the moment it's presented and it'll work out of the box for the vast majority of your users.
Want to use a modern web engine but your customers are running a seven year old OS? No problem, the webview updates come AUTOMATICALLY. Want to integrate with Google's new nearby share mechanism? It's already present on the same devices. Google's cloud API changed as part of a recent Android update? No matter, every API feature has already been working on every outdated phone since before you even know there was going to be a problem.
You do end up with annoying clutter supporting all of these devices because of API/permission changes, but it's all quite easy to deal with if you just stuff the compat code away behind an abstraction.
Want to use a modern web engine but your customers are running a seven year old OS? No problem, the webview updates come AUTOMATICALLY. Want to integrate with Google's new nearby share mechanism? It's already present on the same devices. Google's cloud API changed as part of a recent Android update? No matter, every API feature has already been working on every outdated phone since before you even know there was going to be a problem.
You do end up with annoying clutter supporting all of these devices because of API/permission changes, but it's all quite easy to deal with if you just stuff the compat code away behind an abstraction.