7. Hardware Compatibility

If a device includes a particular hardware component that has a corresponding API for third-party developers:

  • [C-0-1] The device implementation MUST implement that API as described in the Android SDK documentation.

If an API in the SDK interacts with a hardware component that is stated to be optional and the device implementation does not possess that component:

  • [C-0-2] Complete class definitions (as documented by the SDK) for the component APIs MUST still be presented.
  • [C-0-3] The API’s behaviors MUST be implemented as no-ops in some reasonable fashion.
  • [C-0-4] API methods MUST return null values where permitted by the SDK documentation.
  • [C-0-5] API methods MUST return no-op implementations of classes where null values are not permitted by the SDK documentation.
  • [C-0-6] API methods MUST NOT throw exceptions not documented by the SDK documentation.
  • [C-0-7] Device implementations MUST consistently report accurate hardware configuration information via the getSystemAvailableFeatures() and hasSystemFeature(String) methods on the android.content.pm.PackageManager class for the same build fingerprint.

A typical example of a scenario where these requirements apply is the telephony API: Even on non-phone devices, these APIs must be implemented as reasonable no-ops.