Android 6.0 Marshmallow API 23 Guide: Features and Overview

Understanding Android API 23: The Milestone That Changed Mobile Security

In the evolution of the Android operating system, few milestones match the profound impact of API Level 23, which corresponds to Android 6.0 Marshmallow, released by Google. While it brought a variety of under-the-hood refinements, performance improvements, and user-experience enhancements, API 23 is forever etched into developer history for one monumental reason: it completely redefined how Android handles app permissions.

Before API 23, the mobile landscape operated under a legacy framework that routinely compromised user privacy and security. Today, API 23 stands as the foundational baseline that modern mobile development and backward compatibility guidelines still reckon with.

The Pre-Marshmallow Wild West: Why API 23 Was Necessary

To truly appreciate API 23, one must look at how Android permissions worked prior to Android 6.0.

In the older “all-or-nothing” model (API Level 22 and lower), users reviewing an application on the Google Play Store were presented with a static list of required permissions during installation. If you wanted to download a simple flashlight app, and it requested access to your camera, microphone, contacts, and precise location upfront, you had two choices: accept all of them or don’t install the app at all.

This created a major security loophole:

• The “All-or-Nothing” Dilemma: Users frequently granted invasive permissions just to use a basic utility, unaware of how their data was being leveraged behind the scenes.
• Silent Vulnerabilities: Apps could access sensitive hardware components or personal data indefinitely once installed, without any secondary prompts or indicators.

API 23 shattered this paradigm by introducing Runtime Permissions.

The Core Innovation: Runtime Permissions

With Android 6.0 (API 23), Google shifted the permission-granting process from installation time to runtime.