Why would we set it to 26.0.0.0 instead of 26?  API level is an integer.

I think Selim meant 26.0.0 - this is to preserve the formatting so that a \d+\.\d+\.\d+ regex will still match. So far we have always presented the android version as three numbers (and the logic to attempt to do so is what has caused many of the problems when dealing with changes in android).

I was assuming we would only change this for future OS versions and would keep the current logic for existing OS versions - not just to avoid breaking CTS retroactively but also because this might not be a web compatible change - people might already be checking for particular values.

There's ongoing discussion about removing $(BUILD) as well elsewhere.

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> The value of the $(BUILD) string MUST be the same as the value for android API level.0.0.0. For example for API level 26, it will be 26.0.0.0

"$(VERSION)" resembles the pattern "x.y.z," "a.b," etc., not "$(BUILD)". I think "$(BUILD)" was a typo?

"$(VERSION)" gives WebView some headaches: some apps incorrectly parse these Android version numbers. For example, the Android P useragent is "Android 9", but many apps search for "Android x.y" or "Android x.y.z". The result is that P devices aren't detected as Android phones, and the app serves desktop pages.

That said, this was *never* the right way to detect mobile devices. Apps should search for "mobile" instead, which we have since clarified in our docs [1]. But, I'm sure many apps nonetheless assume the wrong thing.

[1] https://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/best-practices

Yes, this means $(VERSION), not build ID. We have, since the early days, made it so that the useragent just always roundtrips what Android use for ro.build.version literally, which is why Android 9 is indeed Android 9, not 9.0.0.

So, some of the motivation for this is gone; the UA format is already inconsistent between versions (but consistent with android native APIs) and web developers have to deal with that.

However, it is still the case that android don't generally consider the "version" used here to be important/meaningful for development purposes and the API level is the thing developers should care about.

Given the backward compat requirements would mean we could only change this for future OS versions, the result seems likely to just be very confusing. Let's just not do this. People who are parsing UA have already had to start doing it more carefully as a result of the last couple of android releases changing the format :)