AndroidPropTracker: Mining lifetime properties of Android projects

Abstract

Android operating system introduces new releases frequently. This fact led to the existence of several Android Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which is one of the causes of the Android fragmentation phenomenon. As a consequence of fragmentation, many apps became not ready for new Android releases. Aiming at investigation of the readiness of Android apps, we developed a software repository mining tool to understand how ready apps are (and were) for Android releases. The tool tracks the changes of Android projects properties over time, contributing for a deeper analysis through collecting data since the beginning of the projects. It allows researchers to examine when exactly Android properties were changed, how many times they were changed, as well as all their values along time. This mechanism can support researchers to understand the evolution of Android projects and to answer research questions. In addition, developers can use the tool to track their apps evolution and perform comparisons and analysis with other open source apps. The tool can help developers to have a broader view of their apps evolution as well as to analyze competitor apps evolution.