Android projects can have a target SDK version that is different from the minimum SDK version. For example, the target could be 4.0, but the minimum is 1.6 - so the application is careful to only use APIs from > 1.6 if it's sure they're available.

Currently, in order to get the Android plugin to download an Android SDK target, you have to add an emulator of that version. For example, if you want the 4.0 SDK, you need to add a 4.0 emulator. However, I want the 4.0 SDK available for building, but I want the 1.6 emulator running for testing. If I set the emulator to run Android 1.6, then the auto-SDK downloader doesn't download the 4.0 SDK and the build fails.

The ability to specify that a certain Android SDK be available would also be helpful when Jenkins is used simply to build, but not test the application in an emulator. The only way to get an SDK target installed now is if the build is configured to run an emulator.