To me, the issue isn't even so much forcing users to upgrade. The reality is that most people don't look into OS upgrades unless they're heavily marketed in mainstream media. And even if they're interested, they may not want to spend the money or time to install it.
Whether all of that matters to you depends on your market. The more mainstream the target audience, the more you typically have to consider platform versions. Though it's also worth balancing that with development time. If a developer uses API specific to a certain version of the OS, he may still see a net benefit even with a reduced audience if the API saves a significant amount of time or enables certain functionality.
by Scott Stevenson — Jan 06
Whether all of that matters to you depends on your market. The more mainstream the target audience, the more you typically have to consider platform versions. Though it's also worth balancing that with development time. If a developer uses API specific to a certain version of the OS, he may still see a net benefit even with a reduced audience if the API saves a significant amount of time or enables certain functionality.