What is the difference between Theme.AppCompat and Theme.Material in Android?

Question

In my case, what's the difference here:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light.DarkActionBar">

and

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

Answer 1

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.*">

This is a raw design theme designed for Android 5+

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.*">

This is a way to use material design on pre-lobe devices (thus application compatibility). You can develop a new API using AppCompat and, as such, work with earlier API levels than the original API level.

In this case, this means that you can run Material Design on platforms that do not come with material design (which means pre-Android 5)