Really unhappy today when I went to my mobile to review some words and found it wouldn’t open and to go to the play store only to be told that the new app was not compatible with my phone.
Will not buy a new phone when the one I have works perfectly and it is much more environmently friendly to not keep changing your phone.
There should be the facility to carry on with the older app.
I need to use the one on my phone rather than the computer because of tendonitis when I use a keyboard for any length of time so now I am now stuck.
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It’s just their whim to force users to have the latest version of the app. From the users’ point of view there’s no improvements, they are not fixing old bugs, stats page is getting on your way to courses.
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We understand it’s frustrating, but it is necessary for us to do this sometimes, older versions of operating systems have less functionality and this can block us from developing a modern app experience. We try to support as many old versions as we can and we generally support operating systems far longer than the device manufacturers themselves do with their security updates.
The reason we have to force people to upgrade rather than let people use old versions forever is so we can make changes to our backend services, if a version of the app expects a certain backend service in a certain format then we have to keep supporting it or the app version would break. This leads to us having vast amounts of technical debt and complications and slows down our ability to create new features. Sometimes we need to move people to a newer version so we can have a tidy up, it’s not a decision we take lightly and we try to affect as few users as possible, in this case it’s about 1 in 300 users.
In your circumstance, if you don’t feel able to upgrade your phone, or use a physical keyboard, I’d recommend using the mobile version of our website on your phone, we work hard to make it responsive to different device sizes and it should work almost as well as the native apps.
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Thank you for your reply. In my disappointment I didn’t think of using the browser on my phone as the app is so easy to use. I have given it a go as I will be sticking with my 7 year old phone for some time. It is not as responsive and a bit more fiddly but is usable. I don’t know how many users you have but 1 in 300 could still be a large number of users.
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Hi @James_g_memrise, I guess it would be helpful to have an announcement/ warning before a new version is launched (ideally if you knew which OS would not work) as I’m sure most people would rather continue with the old version with limited functionality.
I’m afraid you misunderstood, in this instance the choice is to upgrade or not use the app as we have retired backend functionality the very old versions if the app needed to function.
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Thanks for explaining James.
I had assumed that the old version would still function albeit with some limitations.
Guys just can’t be stopped from destroying themselves.
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What was the Android OS version you are running on your phone?
What was the concrete app version (installed in what year)?
If the app locks you out it will probably point you to the most recent (newest) app version in the Google Pay store. Which normally means (same thing with Duolingo) that it requires one of the later Android OS versions (for minimum API access).
If you want you can double check for your older Android OS version which archived Memrise app version was compatible with that OS version.
Several archive sites offer APK downloads (for manual installation) and give that additional information as well as the release year in their online links.
Maybe an older APK file still works with your Android OS (V4.4 or something??) and there are app files hosted which are still just a little bit newer than the one version which got blacklisted by Memrise when logging in.
Just an idea.
For example with Duolingo very old versions went up to Android OS V4.4.
Then 5.0 was required, later they made the jump to 7.0.
Nowdays you need at least Android 9.0 or at least 8.1 if you install an older app version.
There is a website called Virustotal dot com where you can upload a local APK file and where multiple online scanners (huge list!) can do their security job in the background to proof everything is OK with your downloaded app archive file.
So in fact you do not relate only on one single antivirus scanner.
You just have to click on the rescan button if they hash_id is not working for your APK download (file name, file size, etc.) and not enough information is given.
But for security reasons it hardly makes sense to run very stone old Android OS versions and not update the security packages by the manufacturer.
AFAIK the vendors only support the Android OS for max 2-3 years incl. security updates.
Some higher end Samsung phones might give you 4+ years (there is an extensive list what models fall out of the monthly or quartely table).
I’m glad that I found a good 6.67" Super Amoled (Oled, 1300 nits) phone in summer 2021 from a bigger manufacturer. Even was able to directly send it to me through Netherlands. Can give you some tips by PM if you want / need.
They are always telling me I shall update the installed OS version (from end of 2021).
Didn’t do this in 2022 to play safe and not to lose “speaking exercises” on 2-3 learning apps because of maybe newly introduced bugs.
But soon even a later OS version will be offered as an update in 2023.
As there is no easy way to go back to the previous vendor version if something fails (you can’t 1:1 clone it and restore/downgrade later, I had asked their support) I first need to do lots of backups of my files.
I guess not much will be left from the old app installations and Android configuration when the new vendor image is based on a very new Android version like 12 or 13.
If you’re using your very old Android OS version (with limited API access) you won’t have much fun with other learning apps too, which are force the usage of not too old Android versions.
So I’m a bit curious which device and Android OS (and Memrise app versions) you are trying to use.
I gave up with my phone and have used the web based version and sometimes my tablet. My phone (Galaxy A3) only has version 6. In fact reluctantly I’ve decided to look for a new one. My bank app doesn’t work any more and the phone keeps saying storage full when I’ve deleted more apps and have hardly any on there now. So virtually just using it for texts, emails, google search and weather!
Annoying as all the new ones are so big except the hideously expensive iphone mini.
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I really like my Redmi Note 10 Pro from Xiaomi (Android 11 / MIUI 12.5) from 2021.
6.67" display size is IMHO the bare minimum for language learning, especially since Duolingo has introduced these nerve-wrecking cartoon charaters which waste some significant free space.
Same thing with 6GB+ of RAM (some phones only have 3-4GB of RAM; forget this).
64GB of flash is really not enough when installing several apps, taking pictures or recording video files or audio, so I would go with 128GB next time.
A borrowed Siemens Gigaset phone in 2020/21 was a bit smaller so not all vertical information was available (this can yield to a bad user experience that the answer is field suddenly pre-filled with 2-3 word banks as the bottom “word bank row” needs to overfill into other areas when the phone height is restricted and can’t display 2-3 rows.
Updates:
Xiaomi wants me to update the OS to MIUI 13.0.x.x which means Android 12. Can remember that I asked their support if it will still be based on Android 11. Seems not.
Another MIUI 14.x update (Android 13 I guess) was announced for Q2/2023 but was delayed. Is to be coming out end of 2023 for several smartphones.
I’m really glad that I found this Super Amoled (Oled) phone because it has a very high 1300 nits sunlight mode. Much brighter than the other normal non-glare IPS panel laptops.
But manufacturers don’t support security updates or Android OS versions more than 2-3 years.
Samsung Galaxy has restricted extended support (4 years) for some high-end or mid-range devices (one A mid class handy is also included, but the other A lower number was differently placed in their support matrix table).
Looks like that later Redmi Note 11 / 12 devices with the Pro or 5G+ or whatever have raised the prices or don’t offer a triple card slot (two Sims, one Sd-card for media).
It’s hard to see a single tree because of all the wood.
But with the “Pro” suffix you can’t go that wrong.
Newer versions might now use a different panel again (not the same “Super Amoled” screen from the Note 10 Pro).
The Samsung Galaxy A class either has monthly or quartely updates.
I should be safe for a while with Android 11 (and Android 12-13 with successive updates).
My banking app definitely runs here.
Hopefully the "voice speaking dictation " feature is still working on later Android 12-13 OS versions, like it is with Android 11 for 2+ apps (not Memrise).
Here you can see what Android OS versions the Memrise app versions from the last 1-2 or 3 years are based on
(I heard somewhere on Reddit that 2021 support got disabled??..but need to verify this again).
I definitely had used much older versions than this in 2016/17 or 2018 (Android emulator software) even BEFORE I used the borrowed Siemens Gigaset phone in 2020/21 as a backup for my broken down very old laptops.
Have not yet returned to Memrise since I got my Redmi Note 10 Pro in summer 2021 for different reasons (broken userscript support is one of them, missing TTS audio provider is another one, lack of typing support or missing voice dictation on the phone like Lingvist supports it for cloze-deletions is another important factor).
No idea how to come succesfully back with my abandoned courses and huge backlogs of due words.
Probably need to buy a new laptop first.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll keep those phones in my shortlist.
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