text:
Why are these picture-related apps blank?
I've been wondering a lot about this when it happened which I was using Walli* app yet after I have changed my ROM, maybe the app gets blank no matter how I install it. But after a time, I've also realized that there is another app called Reface with the same problem in which I can't use them because they're blank like there is no connection to the Internet.

Note: I'm using Cloudflare Family DNS on my router and Firewall settings such SPI and DOS protection.
My ROM: AOSP based 7.1.2 Android custom ROM

Have you tried with other WiFi/mobile data? This may be a connection/network/firewall configuration issue, not an Android issue.

@AndrewT. Not yet but the other apps are working?

Well, it depends on where the sources of the images come from, and whether they're blocked by the firewall and/or Cloudflare Family DNS..?

I don't know yet. However, Cloudflare Family DNS also blocks malware.

The problem was solved by installing Exposed via recovery instead of Magisk


text:
Apps disappear from start screen but still in the apps menu
Sometimes when an app updates it's icon disappear from start screen (launcher) but still in the apps menu.
What is the reason for this and how to avoid disappearing? Samsung S7

An app can define one or multiple start icons. Each start icon is assigned with a different "start activity" (a different screen in the app).
If an app is reorganized internally this "start activity" may change. As each app icon is assigned to a fixed "start activity" the old app icon you have placed on your home screen (launcher) is no longer valid and is therefore removed.
In the apps menu always all start icons of all apps are displayed. Therefore if the start activity of an app changes the old icon is removed and the new icon is added. Often old and new icon are exactly identical and also the icon text is the same, thus it is not obvious why the icon on the start screen was removed but in apps menu it is still present.

Is there something to avoid this situation on the user or on the programmer's side?

@monok On user side there is nothing you can do. As an app developer you can ensure not to change android:name property of for main activity when publishing updates. As far as I know if you don't change this property the app icon on the launcher should remain as it is when the app is updated.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
How to get a split apk from a device via adb?
There is a well-known question on how to get APKs from an Android device with adb.
However, this fails for split APKs, because there, adb shell pm path com.example.someapp does list you not only one path, but many as shown in this example:
adb shell pm path com.example.someapp
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/base.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.en.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.x86.apk
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-5Vnt5z8Kiyfka4DG7cFr3Q==/split_config.xxhdpi.apk

So how to do that?
Do you need to pull all? Or is base.apk (the filename you always get for non-split-apks) e.g. enough?
And how to reinstall them then later?

For a split APK you need all APK files present on your device if you are lucky. If the device you want to install the app on is too different it may happen that the APK files on your device do not match and you are missing a required APK file, e.g. if the source and the target device have a different CPU architecture.
Usually a split APK consists of (can be more):

a base APK
one APK containing the native libraries for the current platform (if the app uses native libraries)
one APK for the preferences / config UI
one APK for the translation / localization texts, images,...

If you want to get the APK files without using adb there are apps available that are capable to export all split APK files that belong to an app to a folder on the shared storage of your Android device. One such app is the Open Source File manager Amaze that is available in Google Play Store or FDroid. In Amaze use the "App Manager" to export all split APK files to the app_backup folder in shared storage.
For installing a such a bunch of APK files as one app see this question.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
How to deactivate Motoblur and undesirable services on Motorola Defy?
Is it possible to deactivate Motoblur sync and undesirable services on Motorola Defy like:

FeedRecieverService
NewsRecieverService
WeatherService

(all lanched by app.)
Because I really don't care about Weather, news, feed, and must of all, I HATE this Motoblur account who "backup" my personal data without any possibility to limit him : It's just here, in the top of the synced accounts, with a little lock to the left...
If it's possible to do that without rooting the device or install a custom rom, it's for the best: I'm looking for the less intrusive method.
Thanks by advance for your help.

Ok, I've found a way to deactivate Motoblur without rooting the phone!

Reset the phone to factory

Settings ⇒ Privacy or SD and Storage ⇒ Factory data reset

When the phone reboot, cancel the configuration of Motoblur
Take of the widget who remind you to configure it

And it's done !

How do you cancel the configuration of motoblur? It does not seem to be skip or cancable?

Sorry, I don't remember... maybe with home or back button...

While on the Setup screen, press Alt+E twice and then type "BLUROFF"  This should bypass the Setup Wizard and bring you straight to the Launcher.

I just configure another Defy, and you have a "Cancel" button when you start the configuration of Motoblur...

You need root to do something like that, sorry to say.  Rooting is probably less intrusive than screwing with system services, though.
You could use Titanium Backup to "freeze" an app which will prevent if from running or being altered.  If that causes problems, you can simply unfreeze.
You could use Autostarts to control what events trigger what services.  If a service is never triggered, it won't run!

Ok, so even if I root my phone, how can I stop Motoblur sync?

You should be able to freeze/uninstall it with TB.  If you still want the app but not the sync service (if that makes sense, I don't have a Motorola phone), then you can use Autostarts to change what events trigger the service -- remove it from all events.

Just discovered a much easier method. Do a factory reset. then press the bottom left button, and select Skip Setup.

Root the device and then flash a custom ROM.  That will replace the Motoblur.  Once you are running the custom ROM, if you still see that these services are still running, since your phone is rooted you can uninstall the offending system apps.

And I don't know if a rootkit is hidden in the custom rom. I prefer Motoblur at this state...

I actually misread your question.  I will say I'm pretty confident that the major ROMs like CyanogenMod, are rootkit free.

What evidence do you have about this assertion? Everybody seems to be confident, but when I see how it's easy to hide some obfuscated code in Open Sources programs, I just don't see how you can be confident in those "borderline" peace of software without even accessing the code? (it's not a rhetorical question, I'm relay aware of it)

I don't have any evidence. I'm basing it on the fact that Cyanogenmod ROMs have been installed over 80K times.  Many of the people who use CM are developers/hackers or generally technically savvy & inquisitive tinkerers... People who closely monitor their processes, network traffic, performance... people who probably have hacked & modded CM themselves.  I feel pretty confident that of this sampling, if CM had an embedded rootkit, someone would have figured it out & the internet would be abuzz.

Also if a substantial botnet was created with Android phones its only a matter of time before the security world would be buzzing about this and we'd be hearing about it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


text:
Is there a good USB debugging toggle widget for Android?
Can you suggest me a widget for toggling usb debugging mode for Android? Or could you code it and upload to market, please?
(I need it because of HTC Desire and HD's init process consuming 100% cpu bug. When toggled, it resets to 0)

I've had usb debugging mode enabled since this fix was first mentioned and other than the annoying missing driver popup from Windows when I plug it in, I've not noticed amy adverse effects. Why do you need to toggle it on and off?

As I said before, If I do not keep USB debugging mode ON, init process starts to consume 100% cpu in htc desire phones.

Here
installer for easy installation or
 widget only for manual installation

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTION

Prerequisites:

You must be rooted
You must be able to write to /system/app/ folder. USB Debugging is a "Secure" setting, so this widget must be installed as a system apps. It will not work if you install to the standard install location even in rooted device.

Easy Instruction (Recommended)

Nico have written an easy-to-use installer to automate installation to /system/app/; download it here and run the installer app.
Add the widget to your home screen like regular widget.

Manual installation
If the easy instruction doesn't work, try the manual installation:

Download ADBWidget.apk and save it to your computer
Copy ADBWidget.apk to /system/app

Method 1 -- Using Android Debug Bridge (ADB)

Remount /system/app to read-write (see Additional Instructions section below)
adb push ADBWidget-x.x.apk /system/app/ADBWidget.apk (replace x.x with the appropriate version number)
Remount /system/app to read-only

Method 2 -- Using Recovery's update.zip (have not been tested yet)
Method 3 -- Using Root Explorer (have not been tested yet)

Add ADBWidget to your home screen

Upgrade Instruction
If you're upgrading from a previous version, you do not need to do all of the above again. You can simply install an update on regular application directory by using regular installation methods (e.g. opening the apk from a file explorer). As long as there is a previous version of the widget in the /system/app directory with the same signing key (i.e. my key, if you used the apk download above), Android will give the updated version in /data/app the same permission.

USAGE INSTRUCTION
Click on the widget to toggle USB debugging. Blue USB icon means that USB debugging is inactive, red USB icon means that USB debugging is enabled.

UNINSTALL INSTRUCTION
Since the widget is installed to /system/app, you cannot remove it using standard application uninstaller. So, simply delete the .apk from /system/app.
su
remount /system as read write
rm /system/app/ADBWidget.apk
remount /system as read only

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTION

Remounting /system/ as read-write

Open "Terminal Emulator" or "adb shell"
Get root permission, type su
Get the device name, type mount | grep /system
You should see something similar to:
/dev/<device-name> on /system type rfs (ro,codepage=utf8,vfat,fcache(blks)=128,xattr,check=no)
Take note of the <device-name>, and type: mount -o remount,rw /dev/<device-name> /system

Remounting /system/ as read-only

Step 1, 2, 3, 4 same as above
type: mount -o remount,ro /dev/<device-name> /system

TROUBLESHOOTING

Sometimes the widget froze and do not responds to clicks. If this happens, removing and re-adding the Widget usually will fix the problem.

NOTE

Don't complain about the ugly default icon and widget button, but if you can send me a better icon/widget image, I'd be happy to add it. Now we have an icon, thanks to @Jay.
Do not trust strangers that asks you to install an application to /system/app
Tested on Samsung Spica i5700 SpicagenMod Froyo.

Awesome, thanks! You are very fast! But why do we require root access? AFAIK manually enabling it does not require root access. Thanks anyway.

@Ahmet Alp Balkan: the Settings application (the manual way) is a system application, i.e. it is installed in /system/app. In unrooted Android phones, this partition is read-only to maintain the system's integrity and security, and applications which are not installed in /system/app cannot obtain "write secure settings" permission. This widget requires root access only so you can install to /system/app so the widget can obtain the "write secure settings" permission, I don't think you need root for actually using the permission, though I haven't tested on derooted phone yet.

In short, USB Debugging is a "Secure" setting, only system apps can obtain "write Secure setting" permission, system apps need to be installed in /system/app, only rooted phones can write to /system/app, therefore this app requires root. The Settings app does not require root since it is  preinstalled in /system/app. Alternatively, I can easily launch Setting app so you can disable the USB Debugging yourself, but that takes 3 clicks (1 on the widget/icon, 1 on USB debugging, 1 on confirmation) instead of 1 click on widget, just doing that won't require root but is still a hassle.

You're using the old Settings.System.ADB_ENABLED, change it to Settings.Secure.ADB_ENABLED. Also, you must install your program into /system/app/; root permission alone won't allow you to change Settings.Secure.* settings (or more precisely, with root alone, you can change the system's sqlite database to whatever values you want, but Android won't notice this underhanded change to its settings database and won't start adbd unless you reboot the system (which kinda misses the point of having a convenient widget)).

I didn't get Easy Installation to work on Galaxy SII (I9100M) but using Root Explorer I remounted /system/app to R/W and pasted it there.
Should add a note that once the .apk is pasted in the folder, you do not have to click and "Install"
Great answer and great tool. +1

If you have 2.1 or above  you can use the drop down notification area to quickly disable debug mode. Sadly that is all I got, turning it on will have to be done manually. I searched and was unable to find a widget.

There are some apps which do this. But all of them need to be made system app. I didn't want to do this. So I made a widget myself which works just like any other widget. You can get it from here:
https://github.com/alseambusher/adb-toggle

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Settings - Accessibility warning: "Downloaded accessibility application is required to activate" -- What should I do?
If I choose the 'Settings - Accessibility' option on my Samsung Galaxy S, the following text is displayed: 'Downloaded accessibility application is required to activate'.
I searched the Droid Market for 'accessibility' but am not sure that this is the correct way to install this (system?) application.
Anyone any idea what and where from I should install ? Thx.

You probably need TalkBack.

@Al Everett: Do be honest , I don't know what this option does. I only saw your answer here http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2972/hang-up-using-button and decided to enable the option you talked about, only to discover that this option gave the above message.

When I go into Accessibility on my Froyo Galaxy S I get this:

No accessibility applications found
You do not have any accessibility
  applications. You can download a
  screen reader from Android Market.
Click OK to install screen reader

Clicking OK takes me to the Market search page for the Talkback app. Specifically the Market has been searched for pname:com.google.android.marvin.talkback


text:
Why do my Android text messages (SMS) take minutes to send?
I recently bought my first Android phone, HTC Desire Z with Android 2.2 (Froyo).
I imported all my old Nokia E71 SMSs using the Athg2Sms Android app (after converting my Nokia CSV text file to unix-ending format). All 2,000 incoming messages and 200 outgoing messages were imported.
When I try to send a message my phone practically pauses with a modal dialog box saying "Please wait...". This message can appear for 30 seconds to several minutes.
Naturally waiting this long is ridiculous. If I press the Home or Back button the message sending is cancelled and the message goes into "Drafts".
My Nokia phone would accept a message and transmit it in the background.
Have other people encountered this unacceptable sending freeze and have they found a method to fix it? (Note, no answer recommending me to clear out my inbox is acceptable - a tiny inbox is not required for a Nokia phone, neither should it be for an Android phone).

Update
(I'll edit this section as more evidence comes to light).
As per @Michael Paulukonis 's recommendation below I deleted my e-mail accounts and switched to K-9 for e-mail. Since then I've noticed that some of my SMS sends are extremely quick, like 3 seconds. However some are not - some still take over a minute. I still have 2,000+ SMS messages on the phone but perhaps the time-to-send is related to thread length - if I know any more I'll update here!
Update 2
After a month of having the phone was getting ready to throw it at a brick wall with the frustration of being forced to stand like an idiot waiting for the f*@#ing phone to unfreeze when sending messages. I'd even tried backing up all my messages using "SMS Backup & Restore", deleting all messages, and restoring again. Finally gave up and switched to Handcent. Shame on HTC for developing a truly horridly buggy application.
Update 3
I've been using Handcent for a while. This program masks the problem in that it accepts a message as soon as you press "Send" - however the message still takes a long time before it is ready to be sent over the radio - so it appears that the underlying problem must be with the Operating System (is my guess). The good news is that messages are not turned into drafts but it can still take a long time before a message is actually sent.
Update 4
On Christmas Day 2010 I downloaded a system software update v1.72.405.2 onto my HTC Desire Z in the UK. Sent ~30 messages so far, maximum delay has been 6 seconds. Seems like this system update fixed this major bug! I will update over the next week or two to confirm/deny.

Is the lag related to the length of the particular thread?  Say for example how does sending a text message to a brand new number compare to sending one to Friend A (with whom you have 10 message history) and compare to sending one to Friend B (with whom you have 200 message long history)?  Do you notice a correlation?

There appears to be no correlation. I've tried sending messages to contacts that are a day old, and still get minutes-long delay. And I've tried sending messages to threads that have hundreds of messages and, on occasion, happens in a few seconds.

To make the HTC Sense work you have to go "All apps" -> "HTC Likes", then "Sign in" to the HTC Sense account you created online at www.htcsense.com - however I don't recommend it; I tried, and discovered it uploaded my contact list to their website then started telling me which numbers I had that had also registered with this site: total invasion of privacy, so I deregistered and will never use HTC Sense again. Question: what do you mean by "auto send all the sms"?

The HTC Mail and Messaging apps may have memory leak issues -- if this is the case, having a large DB of messages could cause a slowdown.
I had some system slowdowns and freezes. After I started using the K9Mail/Gmail and Handcent SMS apps -- I had no more slowdowns or freezes.
Since HTC apps cannot be uninstalled or turned off (unless you root), you can only set them to never poll for messages and never alert upon receipt of message. Which it shouldn't get. But you never know.

Excellent link; immediately after reading that I deleted all my e-mail accounts from the phone and installed K-9 - quite happy with that so far. And yesterday I had a SMS send in a mere second. I thought my problems were over. But then the next SMS I tried to send took 2 minutes. So e-mail good, SMS still bad.

dang! maybe try @FoleyIsGood's suggestion: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3013/android-text-messages-sms-takes-minutes-to-send/3147#3147

I wish it were so simple. It's not. It's incredibly frustrating. I suspect a serious algorithmic bug that is not related to threads.

If it is thread-length related, i.e. because you have so many SMS's saved, you could try backing them up to your email (search the Market for SMS Backup - there are several good apps that do this really well) then deleting the SMS messages.
Good luck!

Unfortunately it is not thread-length related. To be honest, I suspect there's an algorithm mistake made by HTC (it is HTC's message app)..


text:
Can I get more RAM in emulator while still having a Google Play image?
I know how to make a new system image, by cloning an existing one...
But, I can't alter the amount of RAM in a Google Play-enabled image, without the clone being non-Google Play.
Is there a way to give more RAM to the image while keeping it Google Play-able, instead of the default 1.5GB?

The UI does not allow to change the RAM size neither when creating a new virtual device nor later when editing the virtual device.
However on file level you can simply open the configuration file of the AVD and change the RAM size.
Use an text editor and open ~/.android/avd/<avd name>.avd/config.ini.
Search for the line
hw.ramSize = 1536

and change the amount of RAM, for example to
hw.ramSize = 4096

Then boot the virtual device and you will have 4096 MB RAM as shown in this screenshot:


text:
Why does my Samsung A8 have such poor contrast after updating to Android 9?
I have a Samsung A8 2018 SM-A530W, which was purchased from a major Canadian carrier. It recently updated itself to Android 9 through a Samsung application.
Since that update, many of my applications are very difficult to read. In the case of Calendar and Clock, the contrast ratio between the text and background makes text illegible. In the case of the settings screen, transparency to the wallpaper does the same. I'm sure this isn't intentional, but I'm wondering what I can do besides reset my phone.

White text on an almost-white background makes the calendar impossible to read.

Gray text over a gray background makes the clock difficult to read.

Black text over a transparent background to the default Galaxy wallpaper makes settings difficult to read.

Check if there is the possibility to activate a dark mode. This should increase the contrast between backgrund and text.


text:
Capture TLS handshake
I would like to capture TLS handshakes coming from Android. I was able to install a certificate using this instruction, then I started a server:
openssl s_server -key my_site.key -cert my_site.crt -msg

and I set a proxy in the Android Emulator:
127.0.0.1:4433

but if I browse to any pages on the Android device, I get this result:
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

and this result in OpenSSL:
<<< ??? [length 0005]
    43 4f 4e 4e 45
ERROR
24500:error:1408F09B:SSL routines:ssl3_get_record:https proxy request:../
openssl-1.1.1l/ssl/record/ssl3_record.c:325:
shutting down SSL
CONNECTION CLOSED

What am I doing wrong?

connection refused means that on TCL level the connection could not be established. Make sure that the proxy and the server are really accessible on TCP level. BTW: If you just want to capture the TLS handshake why don't you just use Wireshark to capture it instead of trying to intercept all connections? Also in my opinion openssl s_server may be the wrong tool. I don't think it is able to handle multiple request concurrently. May be that causes the connection refused message (server is busy with first request and the other are rejected on TCP level)?

Last but not least using a proxy is a bad idea because then you don't capture the TLS server connection but the proxy connection. So you don't get the correct handshake.

If you don't need the TLS handshake why do you use it as the title of your question!? What you want are the HTTP request headers.

I ended up writing my own proxy to solve this [1], inspired by another
project [2].
To capture TLS handshake, go to Android Chrome App info, then Storage, then
MANAGE SPACE, then CLEAR ALL DATA, then OK. Then start the server, and go to
Android Emulator Extended Controls. Choose Manual proxy configuration, then
enter:
127.0.0.1:8080

and click Apply. Then start Android Chrome.

https://github.com/89z/rosso/tree/v1.47.3/cmd/proxy
https://github.com/spritesprite/proxychannel


text:
How can one remove the animation when searching for a string in a web page in Google Chrome for Android?
How can one remove the animation when searching for a string in a web page in Google Chrome for Android?
For example searching for "law" with the "Find in page" Chrome feature on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States takes more than three second of scrolling down animation before showing the first occurrence of "law" in the page:

I don't have time to write an answer but you could use a bookmarklet which would deliver whatever effect you interested in.

This is a longstanding problem[1][2][3] with no solution in sight. Some Reddit users argue[1] that if you click on the sidebar instead of arrows on the top, you get the same no-smooth-scroll functionality. I tested this and this is true. But this becomes next to useless when the searched term occurs often and between very few lines, as tapping onto them using the side bar is neither convenient nor practical.
My solution is Kiwi Browser (based on Chromium) and as of version v77.0.3865.92, it has that same classic find-in-page scroll (instantly shows next occurrence instead of scrolling to it). I've been using it because of its support to Chrome Extensions. Firefox for Android also doesn't have this problem either. If the smooth scrolling is a deal breaker you can try these alternatives.

1: Chrome app "find in page" issue
2: scroll-behavior: smooth on Chrome can cause motion sickness issues
3: DISABLE search animation query


text:
How to upgrade my Android device to latest Android version
I have very little experience with Android, or any other mobile device operating system.
I'm accustom to using Linux operating systems, where any time there is an update I can typically upgrade to the very latest version of the operating system without any roadblocks.
I have Galaxy Tab A (Model SM-T550) tablet, that I've barely used the entire time I've had it, and I'm wanting to give it to my Godson as a gift. Before giving it so him, I wanted to upgrade it to the latest Android OS, so that he wouldn't be limited by any missing features that this tablet's older Android version might have.
In the settings menu, I found a Software update feature and tried to update. This is what it said:
The latest updates have already been installed:
Current version: T550XXU1CQJ6/T550XAR1CQJ6/

When I go to "About Tablet", I see that this device has Android 7.1.1 installed and I read somewhere that Android version 10 was released in 2019.
Is this the type of support that I can expect from Samsung when buying one of their Android devices? If so, this will be the last dollar they'll get from me.
Is there any way to upgrade this Galaxy Tab A (Model SM-T550) to the latest Android, or at least a later version than 7.1.1?
I'm very technically savvy on laptops and PCs, if you could direct me to a thorough guide, where someone has accomplished this, I could probably pull it off, its just that I've never really tried to do anything like this with tablets or mobile phones.
Please advise me. Also, if this isn't doable, and I wanted to buy him a new tablet, which brand would be the best about always allowing upgrades to the latest Android? If there's a brand that does that, that will be the only brand I'll buy in the future.

If you are lucky, for a phone or tablet, you can get one major Android version upgrade and security updates for up to 2 years after the device has been released to market. For cell phones the support period depends on how cheap or expensive the device was and how many devices of that type were sold. Usually the more expensive and the more devices were sold, the longer you may get updates and upgrades (e.g. ~3 years).
After that time span you usually won't get any official updates or upgrades anymore.
This situation is sad. Samsung is one of the manufacturer who release updates for a long time for its premium devices.
If you want to get a newer Android version you need to unlock/root the device and install a custom ROM (if there is a working one available for your device).
The only manufacturer on the market who provides updates to smartphone and tablets for a long time is currently Apple.
Edit 2024-05:
Some manufacturers, like Google, Samsung, and FairPhone, have now extended the time span where they provide updates for certain device models. They now provide up to 5-8 years of security and/or Android version updates (depends on the device model).

Wow! Thanks Robert. What about the tablets sold through Google's own store? Surely those will run the latest Android for many years, no?

@LonnieBest Google usually promises two Android major version upgrades and 3 years security updates. In my opinion still half the time I expect as a customer. The short update time is also bad considering the world wide increasing electronic scrap problem.

I'm astonished that the Android customer base tolerates this non-sense. This leads to so much confusion. Every time I look up an article, on how to do something on Android, the steps are never exactly as instructed; menu options are missing or the route to a destination is different than described. The only way to eliminate this atrocious non-uniformity is to develop devices that are always upgrade-able to the latest OS (similar to Firefox and Chrome as web browsers). This is the best case I've heard for choosing Apple over Android.

@LonnieBest Even if all Android devices world wide would use the same Android version most articles won't match your device because all the manufacturer modify the ROM (some nearly undetectable, some manufacturer totally rewrite parts of the system), especially the device settings look different for every manufacturer.


text:
Why do I have less internal storage space after moving Google+ to my SD card?
I'm having a puzzling problem. I was pleased to see that the latest version of Google+ now supports being moved to the SD card.
However, I just installed it on my HTC Desire and, having moved it to the SD card, find I now have 2MB less internal storage space on the phone than I did before! Since the previous version was over 12MB, surely the new version should have freed up a significant chunk of internal storage space? I thought this would help address the problem of constantly running low on space, but it seems to have made it worse. Would be grateful for any suggestions / advice!

Version 1.0.7 is significantly larger than previous versions. Even after moving to the SD card I'm showing 14.5MB taking up system storage. That'll account for your 2MB reduction in space.
Google generally hasn't allowed for their apps to be moved to the SD card, presumably so they can be sure widgets will work or other performance considerations. However, since this version weighs in at over 24MB I guess their hand was forced.

Ah, I hadn't realised that Android only moves part of the app to the SD card. So any space savings from the moving it to the SD card have been offset by the fact that the new version is just a lot bigger anyway... That would explain it I guess. Thanks for clearing that up!

24 mb? That's insane!

Huge apps like these are a nightmare for my poor old HTC Magic.

@SooWeiTan: My Droid isn't much better off.


text:
How to save attachment from Gmail?
I've got two MP3 files from my friend via Gmail. How can I save them to my phone? There is only a Preview button...

What version of the Gmail app are you using? What phone? What version of the OS?

After I installed the ASTRO file manager and I went to "Preview" - ASTRO popped up, and saying, "give a filename" ok, then it saved the files!! (the files must be ex.: zipped!!) - and then I was able to extract the files in the zip.

Sounds like you have a crippled version of the app.
I emailed myself an mp3 file and got "Download" and "Preview" buttons. Pressing "Download" downloaded the file (as one would expect) to /sdcard/download.
(This is an original DROID with Froyo.)

I found a number of apps just for this purpose:

Download All Files
Save My Attach

All of these apps function by becoming options when you click on the Download or Preview button. These are just a couple that I tested out. Download All Files was my favorite. I'm sure there are other apps out there with similar functions.

You can't, at least not with any consistency, and it looks like you can't request the feature anywhere either. You'll need to use a different email client, or wait for the Google Apps team to implement this out of the blue.


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How to highlight nickname instead of first name/last name?
I would like to highlight nicknames in the contact list using a bigger font and first/last name under that, in smaller font (practically opposite as implemented by default)
Is it possible?
I am running Android 2.2 (CM6.0.1)

Not with the stock Contacts app.

Could you suggest me a different way to reach the result? Another rom, or a market app?

There are quite a few Contact List replacement apps in the market, you won't need to root or replace your ROM since the default Contact apps is just another regular Android application. I haven't actually used them, so I can't recommend any good ones, so you will have to play with them and see which ones you'll like.

I've tried Go Contacts and Go Dialer and it seems really handy with useful features and beautiful look!
P.S I wanted to post a comment but I don't have adequate permission for "comment everywhere" right now!

This seems like an answer to me.

The app is no longer available. How do solve this issue these days?

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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Google plus application is 24 mb after wrong update
I was updating from the market this app and I got a package error. I uninstalled it and installed it again from scratch. No problem.
Now the app is 24 mb!
To me it sounds like the broken package is still sitting somewhere in my internal memory...
Cleaning dalvik and application cache didn't help :(
Any hints?

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/13743/why-do-i-have-less-internal-storage-space-after-moving-google-to-my-sd-card

The new update has made the size bigger.

Not possible 24 mb!

The size may also include your Google Plus data.
Also check the comments at Android Market, there are other people with same issue. For case in point, a guy by the name Dai is saying "It says that its 9.77mb but when I download it, it jumped up to 23.something..."

8.06 MB for me after install, data is only 180 KB not 16 MB.

The app most certainly can be 24MB. See this question: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/13743/why-do-i-have-less-internal-storage-space-after-moving-google-to-my-sd-card

Can confirm 24MB, just checked my phone and it's 24.34MB/24.27MB/72.0KB (total/applications/data).

Check that the application is only installed once in these directories:

/data/app/ for user-installed app directory
/system/app/ for pre-installed system app directory

If an app comes preinstalled with the phone or your custom ROM ships with it, then the original .apk will be installed in /system/app/ (which is read-only, unless you root your phone and remount the directory to be writable) so that you can uninstall the updated version of an app or do a Factory Reset to restore all apps to their original version. This can also happen if you have rooted phone and do an installation by copying an apk to /data/app. In short, updated system apps takes double the space than user-installed apps as the system stores the original .apk as well as the updated .apk in separate directory/partition.
If you are 100% sure that you will not downgrade or do a Factory Reset, then you can root the phone and delete /system/app/BlahBlah.apk to save some space; although this might not actually give you more space for storing data or applications unless you repartition the internal memory since the /system/ directory is usually a separate partition from the user-installed app directory. In short, don't do anything unless you really know what you're doing.

Thank you, great answer! It seems I can't find this app :( do you know Google plus app name? Maybe when you update applications their temporary download is stored somewhere else with a different name...


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What is Onetimeinitializer.apk Android application?
Anyone know purpose or any document about Onetimeinitializer.apk? It is a built-in application.
I searched for a while but did not find any information about it.
Does anyone have documentation for it? Thanks.

According to this it runs the first time you boot up (Cyanogenmod?) and prompts you for what Google Apps to install.


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htc desire z cannot receive exchange emails completely
My HTC Desire Z has the latest Android 2.2.1 system, and my company's exchanges is the latest Exchange 2010. After I set up the Exchange Sync, I am able to receive email. People in my company loves to send long emails, and Android is so smart that it did not download the email at once, but allowing me to download the remaining part of the email as I scroll down. And there comes the problem...no matter how hard I scroll down, it just cannot get the missing part.

Can you be a little clearer about the issue you're trying to resolve? (There's a reason no one has responded to your question for a month-and-a-half.) Is it that your e-mail client is not downloading complete messages?

The attender from HTC asked me to remove my exchange account and add it again, and the problem is solved.

I'm glad you got your issue resolved. Please remember to "accept" this as the solution so it can act as a signpost to future visitors who have the same issue.


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Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100): Problems with Wifi signal, bad reception, breaking connection
I recently bought an Samsung S Galaxy II (i9100), and I am pretty pleased with it. It is by far the best phone I ever owned.
The only downside I have is that it has a really poor wifi signal. It gets almost half of the bars my old HTC HD2 got. This is not a big problem, I am not always far away from my router anyways.
The really annoying part is that is stops working after a few minutes. I am just browsing, and then suddenly the connection stops. I then need to switch off wifi, and back on the get the connection going again.
The signal is already on 'never sleep', so that is not the problem. And I do not have this problem with the HTC HD2, so it's not my router either, its just the phone.
Anyone know a fix for this, I have been looking on the net, a lot of people have this problem, but I failed in finding a good solution.
Really bad downside for such a great phone.
----- EDIT -------------
I also read an article about it maybe being the router. I downloaded a program called Wifi-Analizer. It said the channel had a poor signal, so I changed the wifi channel to 13. I also changed the settings to use N only, before it was B + G + N.
This helped a little bit at first, it does not break so often anymore, but the signal does break every few hours.

I face a similar problem with samsung galaxy S.
I think after you root the phone, there is a way to replace the modem part of your phone. I will try after my warranty period.

Did you try your phone with another  router?

@balki I just flashed my device with villainROM. It comes rooted, and you can replace the modem part. I flashed everything works great now. Maybe the problem was a bad modem. If you give an answer bellow I can give you the bounty points. As replacing the modem is the only option that worked for me.

Samsung modifed the modem component of android and it is buggy in galaxy S. The solution is to root the phone and replace the modem part of it.

I think I have to give the points to this answer. Can you point me by the way to a good modem for the i9100. I use a good one now, but maybe there is a better one.

this looks like a problem with your phone, because I know many S2 owners who have not had this problem. It is better you get the phone to your dealer and have it repaired or just try a factory reset, you might have installed an app that messed with the system files. All this is assuming your router is fine!

This could be right also. Unfortunately I had already flashed the rom a few times so my warranty is gone. When the problem persist I will use the USB jig to reset the warranty, and send it back to the store. For now all problems are gone with the new ROM and modem. Works faster and uses less battery also.

if you changed your modem too there is no way to pinpoint at the source of the problem. Just for the sake of clarification try your old modem.

I will try that today, do you have any good resource for the stock modem.

http://www.samsunggalaxysforum.com/samsung-galaxy-s-rooting/custom-romskernelsmodemthemes-for-vibrant/ maybe ..

I had the same problem on a home wifi network - I had the router configured to run 802.11b/g/n. The problem disappeared when I reconfigured the router to 802.11b/g only.

I tried everything with the router settings, I had no luck with it. I had the same problem also with other routers at friends.


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Two Google calendars on my Android (HTC)?
I can access my personal Google calendar.
Can I also access my work Google calendar (we use Google Apps)?
Can I

Merge these two, but not share my personal calendar with work mates?
Set it up not to receive work emails?

EDIT:
HTC Desire on Android 2.1

Which HTC phone do you have, and which Android version is it running?

Yes you can add the eMail adress from your GApps account via
Settings > Accounts & Synchronisation > Add Account
Then enter your credentials and you can access your accounts eMail, contacts and calendar without automatically sharing information from your private calendar with your colleagues.
But you need to watch out which account you use creating new calendar entries from now on.
After that you need to open your calendar application and press Menu > Calendar > Select the calendars you want to see.
If you don't want to see your work eMails you can easily decide which items you want to synchronize with your device.
Merging the calendars is not really necessary since you can view many different calendars in the calendar application.

I shared my work calendar and added to my personal one. But I can see only busy if in my personal calendar. If I can make it work that I can see details for the calendar item on my mobile it would be great. I cannot see the shared calendar from my mobile :-(

This is something with your sharing settings for your work Google Calendar. You need to make a few settings there. You might find help on this over at SO.

SO would not be the right venue for asking for help with Google Calendar. Rather, Webapps would be the place to ask.

True, but providing an answer here is ok IMHO.


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Can I override the default DNS settings on an HTC Evo without root access?
Is there any way to override the Sprint DNS server(s) used by default on the 3G connection of an HTC Evo running Froyo without root access?
The reason I want to do this is because some sites are able to resolve when I'm using OpenDNS or Google DNS while connected via WiFi at home, but when I'm on 3G, the same sites come up as page not found, so the easiest culprit to blame is DNS.

Everything I've seen suggests you can only do it if your phone is rooted.  Here's a tutorial for those with rooted phones.

Bummer...I am pretty sure you're right. Thanks for the link, though!

As this question got very old but seems to be the first result when searching for DNS setting on both wifi and mobile, I would like to answer this to provide a more up-to-date result - I also searched for myself earlier. First of all full disclosure: I'm the author of the app, which can provide this also without root. Take a look at Lilly, this may help you to set your DNS settings.


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How do I uninstall an application?
If I want to completely uninstall an application from the home screen or list of applications; how do I do it?

You can uninstall an application from the Market or from the Manage Applications settings screen.
From Marketplace:

Start the Market app.
Hit the menu button and select Downloads.
Find the app you want to uninstall and select it.
Hit the Uninstall button at the bottom.

From Manage Applications:

From your Home screen hit the menu button and select Settings.
Select "Applications"
Select "Manage Applications"
Find the app you want to uninstall and select it.
Hit the Uninstall button at the top.

EDIT: I wanted to add a 3rd method that Rohan Singh had in his answer.
From your Home screen:

Tap and hold on the icon of the application you want to uninstall.
When the trash can appears near the bottom center of the screen, drag and hold the icon there.
After the tap & hold / drag & hold some text will appear indicating that you can uninstall by dropping the application's icon on the trash can.
Release your finger over the trash can and you'll be taken to the same uninstall screen you can get to through Manage Applications in your Settings.

The drag and drop method only works in some Home launcher programs, such LauncherPro.

Go to settings->Applications->Manage applications
Select the application you want to remove.
Click uninstall.
Not all applications may be removed (some are locked down by your carrier / phone vendor).

A quick, easy way to uninstall an application is to hold down on its icon, and then drag it to the trash can at the bottom of the screen like you would if you were removing a shortcut from your home screen. However, hold the icon over the trash can for a few seconds until "Drop to uninstall" appears.

This will remove the app's icon from your Home screen, but not actually uninstall the app.

If you hold the icon over the bin for a while , you get a "drop to uninstall" notification , the behavior may have been changed by the manufacturer.

By using adb from command line:
adb uninstall <package name to uninstall>


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How to root a Samsung Spica
How do I go about rooting my Samsung Spica?

The main reference resource site for modders and "cookers" of Samsung Spica aka i5700 is at Samdroid forum board, here.
It contains all information you need to upgrade your firmware version, root your phone, etc.

Interesting... forum.samdroid.net came up in the Google search but I wouldn't have known it's the main resource. Good answer.

This rooting tutorial is much easier to follow than Samdroid's (it still uses Samdroid's method, but the tutorial is much less terse and have pictures): http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/root-samsung-galaxy-spica-i5700-with-leshaks-kernel/


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What is the easiest way I can send one contact's phone number to another on my Android?
I have to send two contacts in my phone book to another contact, on my Nexus One Android 2.2. How can I do this easiest?
On my old SonyEricsson this function was on a nearby menu, but I can't find it on Android.
I have also tried to copy the phone number when in edit mode of the contacts, but I can not paste it when composing the SMS to my contact. Is there really no way to transfer a contact via SMS or MMS on Android other than writing the numbers down on paper and then write them in the SMS message later as in the stone age?

Failing the answers below, copy and paste from Contacts app to Messaging app should just work without any problem, I've used it a few times before to copy lines from addresses, emails and that sort of thing into a SMS. Are you sure you long-pressed long enough in the SMS message to get the input menu up with the Paste option on it?

Copy and paste from Contacts app to Messaging app should just work without any problem, I've used it a few times before to copy lines from addresses, emails and that sort of thing into an SMS.
Are you sure you long-pressed long enough in the SMS message to get the input menu up with the Paste option on it? Or that you copied it properly in the first place? Copying data from a Contact is most easily done by Editing the Contact, then long-pressing on the field you're interested until the input menu comes up with the Copy All option.


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Does android 2.1 have any specific built-in ebook apps?
I'm thinking about getting a Samsung Galaxy S phone, I want to know a bit more about its capabilities as an ebook reader
Does it have any built in applications for reading? And if so which formats does it support?

See also http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3424/android-ebook-options-ereader-apps-kindle-nook-google-books

Android 2.1 doesn't have any preloaded ebook readers but specific phones may have something preloaded.  The pre-loaded apps depend on the carrier, but regardless you can download different ebook readers from the Android App Market for free.  Unfortunately none of the current ebook readers are a complete solution as they all have major limitations.  Here are the main players:
Free & Non-proprietary (free app & free books)
Aldiko: Supports ePubs with and without Adobe DRM.  There are thousands of these books available; Aldiko also has an included store selling commercial, DRM-protected books. Great user interface.  Aldiko also has a paid app that has more features.
There are a bunch more that do the open source books in the app market but none hold a candle to Aldiko.
Proprietary (these are all free apps but in most cases you have to buy the books)
eReader:  Only reads PDB files and you have to sideload the app.  There area several book stores that sell books in this format including ereader.com and fictionwise but these books are usually twice as much as Kindle or Nook books.  Barnes & Noble used to sell PDB ebooks but swicthed to a DRM'd ePub.  This has got a great (powerful and easy) UI and used to be my favorite when I could get books from B&N but now it is useless to me.
Nook: Reads open ePubs and DRM'd ePubs you buy from Barnes & Noble.  The UI needs a lot of work compared to eReader and Aldiko.  *I just abandoned this for the Kindle app.
Kindle: (this one comes pre-loaded on the T-Mobile Galaxy S) Reads DRM'd (.azw) ebooks you buy from Amazon.  *This is now my ereader of choice.
Kobo: Reads ebooks from kobo.com.  I haven't bothered with this since the Nook came out.  It used to be able to read Borders.com books but I don't know anymore.  The old version of the app didn't allow for offline reading but they might have fixed that.
Most of the major proprietary readers (Nook, Kindle & Kobo) all have about the same selection of new release books at the same price (about $12.99 per book).  I expect these apps to get a lot better in the future it's just a very frustrating that I used to be able to use a much more robust and user friendly app (eReader) with new B&N books, but now I have had to downgrade to the Nook.
But to answer you question (got off on a tangent there, sorry): If you get the Galaxy S from T-Mobile you'll have Kindle pre-loaded, but even if nothing's pre-loaded you can download all or any of the above mentioned apps for free from the Android Market (except eReader which you have to sideload).

Update: Amazon just recently updated their Kindle App with a few key features (that I came to love in eReader) that make it a Nook killer in my book:  1. Ability to highlight text and make notes 2. Ability to long click on a word and look it up at dictionary.com or wikipedia.  I'm switching to the Kindle App now although I'm annoyed that I just bought two Nook books.

Very comprehensive answer, thanks for your time :)

Think the bundled eBook reader may depend on your network/country. My Vodafone UK Galaxy S came with Aldiko pre-loaded, but I mainly use the Kindle app (although it uses a DRM'd format there is a large selection of free books to keep you going).

I only use FBReader since it does full screen text reading the best. But I have to convert all my books from whatever format I get them in into the fictionbook format.

You should add Endless Reader to this list. It supports Open Formats (text files!) and is really quite good. I switched to it when converting to other formats like ePub became a pain.

In the US, at least, most editions of the Galaxy S are shipped with Quick Office, a pretty functional document viewer that includes Word & PDF support. It's basic, but works.
Beyond that, quite a few 3rd party apps are available on the market, including Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and a handful of readers supporting non DRMed formats like TXT and epub.

I prefer FbReader but none of the android readers are as good as Stanza for iPhone.  I find them all quite disappointing:(.

My TMO Vibrant came with the Kindle app, but as Saiboogu said, they're all downloadable, too.

I am using Laputa reader and I am very much satisfied with same.

That looks like a good ereader.  Can it display DRM protected ebooks?

I think so it doesn't support DRM protected books.

My Samsung Galaxy S came with the Aldiko e-reader pre-installed.  Apparently, this is pre-installed by Samsung, not my carrier.  It is specified in the official Galaxy S website in the user guide, under tools.


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Touchscreen Protector and Sensitivity
I have Samsung Spica I5700 that have capacitive touchscreen, and I used a touchscreen protector.
Recently, I've noticed that the touchscreen often produces erratic movements, for example, if I put my still finger on the screen, the "cursor" will shake vigorously (sometimes very far off).
This makes the touchscreen very unusable; countless of times I've accidentally flinged the page when scrolling, while touching the screen for small scrolling; countless of times, the screen registered scrolling as a zooming or unzooming; and worse, it often flings to the wrong direction from my swiping direction (indicating a random erratic sensing). Sometimes, when I tried to touch a button/link on the top-left, the screen will detect a click in some other far away button (i.e. one not under my finger). Any games that uses touch intensively also becomes unplayable.
Could this be caused by the screen protector? Since capacitive touchscreen is operated by soft surface of a finger (instead of a pointy stylus), is there any noticeable benefit of using screen protector? or are they just a waste of time and money? do you think peeling off the protector will have a chance of fixing those problems?

Does it do this all the time or just when it's plugged in or tethered to the computer?  I was having the same problem with my Droid on 2.1, but only when it was plugged into my computer via the USB cable.  I've had a screen protector on since day one (with the exception of a few days here or there) and I have not had any problems with it.  It very well could be the cause of your problems but they are well worth using to protect the screen from scratches.  I recommend removing yours as a trouble shooting method.

Have you tried running through screen calibration?

@Matt: I'll check the effect of plugging when the screen goes awry again. I noticed that the screen is often to be worse off when I'm using the phone inside my room, compared to when I'm outside (maybe the temperature, or humidity, or maybe because it's not plugged in). It seems improbable plugging in could affect the touchscreen, but we never knows.

@gary comtois: Either Spica doesn't come with a screen calibration, or I can't find it I can't find a calibration app in the market either.

@Matt: It seems plugging in to a computer is related to the problem, I don't know what to make of this; perhaps LogCat is doing too much I/O? Since LogCat seems to be unnecessarily verbose in my unit, and I often leave USB debugging on.

I don't know much about LogCat or about what is causing this but I think some relevant questions are: Are you using the stock cable? are you plugging into a laptop or desktop? If it's a laptop is it a powered or non-powered usb port? Is the laptop running off of batter power at the time or is it plugged into a power source?   I can't find a an agreed upon cause for this problem but many out there in the forums are speculating that it has to do with the amperege of the charger, or a cheap connector that is sending info/power to the wrong pins.

@Matt: Confirmed: after installing a screen testing app (and subjective confirmations on other apps); I found that the touch becomes most shaky when I'm plugging into my laptop which is itself connected to the wall charger. The touch is less shaky when the laptop is running on battery or when the phone is directly charged on a wall charger, but they're still not as stable as when the phone is free-standing. This makes me suspect that this is probably some electrical or grounding issue. Since the touchscreen protector is now freed of all charges, I think I'll open a new question sometime soon.

To answer you questions:
Could this be caused by the screen protector?
Possibly.  Take the screen protector off and see if the problem persists.  My screen protector doesn't affect the functioning of my screen at all.  This is going to depend on the particular screen protector (I'm sure there are cheap, bad ones) and the particular phone (they all have different screens and some have calibrations, some dont, some have screen sensitivity adjustment options, some don't).
Is there any noticeable benefit of using screen protector? or are they just a waste of time and money?
Yes there is a benefit, they protect the screen, and no they are not a waste of money. I have scratched/scuffed the hell out of my screen protector and all I had to do was remove it, and put a new one on and my phone was as good as new. Had I not had a screen protector my phone would be unusable now, so for just a few dollars and no performance cost my phones screen is as pristine as the day I got the phone.  That being said, my job and my lifestyle tend to put the phone through a lot of abuse ;o)
My recommendation: Take the screen protector off and go from there.  If that doesn't work and it's under warranty, bring it back.
There are so many factors that can affect the touchscreen because it is the basis for all inputs and outputs of the device and troubleshooting can take a while.  I would be surprised if it was the humidity or heat difference between indoor and out, but there are a number of different things that can change from indoor to out and if theres a bug, they may be affecting how your phone operates: GPS, Wifi, reception, Auto-brightness sensor.
This correlation could also be a coincidence.  It could be a particular app that isn't playing nice with Android and your phones firmware.
You will need to to systematically isolate the conditions that affect the problems with your screen and the ones that don't, but ultimately it could just turn out to be a bad unit.

Note that you have scratched your protector, not the screen. That's because screen protectors are made of soft film susceptible to scratching. Just remove it and enjoy scratch-free uninhibited clear view - free of charge and for the life of your device.

The problem

if I put my still finger on the screen, the "cursor" will shake vigorously

can be caused by the power supply. Touchscreen sensors seem to be very sensitive to power supply ripple. It is easy to check; unplug the power cable (on a phone this is usually also the USB cable) so that you are running from battery, and see if the problem goes away. Be sure your wall charger has enough power (check the output current against the phone/tablet spec).

And one could try a different, higher quality USB power supply. Only the very cheap ones tend to create a lot of RF interference.

Screen protectors seem to have no effect on touchscreen sensitivity.
I carry my phone in a small thick clear plastic bag. Sometimes I take the phone out to operate it but more often I don't - and it works beautifully.
The problem you have is more likely to do with parasitic capacitive coupling sneaking in from somewhere in your setup.


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How to change default homepage in Android browser?
How to change address that appears in:
Internet(stock browser) -> Settings -> Set home page -> Use default.
I can set another homepage, or use current, but I'm interesting in changing exactly this field.

are you trying to do this programmatically or as a user?

trying to do as user

When you're in the browser, open the Menu, choose More | Settings and select "Set home page".

Ok, but I don't own that DTD with current issue. And I can't check on it.


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Where does "Places" get all its information?
In my Nexus S, there is an application named "Places", which it is able to provide me the restaurants information near by me. Surprisingly, the information are very localize and accurate.
May I know where does Google get all these information?

Places is part of Google Maps (and was introduced with Maps 4.4 about a year ago), you should be able to see and search for all the same businesses and attractions in the main Google Maps app, Places just puts a nicer interface on it.
Much of the data came from what used to be called Google Local. Businesses can add themselves to Local/Maps/Places and update their records themselves, here http://www.google.com/local/add/promo Google Maps has had a "Add your business to Google Maps" link on the page pretty much forever, that links to http://www.google.com/local/add?hl=en&gl=us
Also just like other local business discovery services like Foursquare, users themselves can add places into Places, check into them and rate them through the app or http://www.google.com/hotpot
See also the announcement page from when "Place Pages" were first added to the web version of Google Maps back in 2009 which has some more details http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/place-pages-for-google-maps-there-are.html including that you can add them through community edits or Google Map Maker.

At my locality http://www.google.com.my/m/places shows that at least some of the places are "Business listings provided by Super Pages Malaysia". That provider information is not shown in my Places application though.


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Is it possible to use 2-step verification with multiple accounts on a phone?
Using 2-step verification with Google Authenticator on an Android handset provides good security for accessing Gmail and other Google services.  What I am curious about is whether Google Authenticator can provide support for all Gmail accounts on the phone (multiple Gmail accounts can be added to a single handset under the Accounts menu in Settings).  Will both accounts authenticate using the same codes?

I know that the Authenticator app does allow for manually entering accounts. I haven't yet set up a second account with 2-step authentication, though.

It supports third-party account too. For example, I use it for LastPass 2-step authentication..

Yes, the Android as well as Blackberry versions of Google's Authenticator app supports multiple accounts.
Press MENU and choose SCAN BARCODE after you've set up your new Google Account for 2-factor auth to grab the displayed barcode or enter details manually.
Details: https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator

Google Authenticator creates two-step verification codes on your phone.
Google Authenticator works with 2-step verification for your Google Account to provide an additional layer of security.
Features:

Automatic setup via QR code
Support for multiple accounts
Time and counter based code generation

To use this app, you need to enable 2-step verification on your Google Account.

Google Authenticator, as well as other 2FA applications, support multiple accounts (not only Google services). In the process of token enrollment, you will be asked to scan the QR code. Based on this QR codes Google Authenticator generates one-time passwords. As QR codes are different OTPs generated by the app are also different. You should create a new token for each account.


text:
CyanogenMod USB tether
I can't seem to find the option to enable USB tether in CyanogenMod 7.0.1 . Several pages and forum threads mention a checkbox under Wireless & network setting, but i don't have it.
Is there anything i need to do to get this to show up? Is this not supported anymore? What USB mode should I select? The phone is a Motorola Milestone, computer runs Windows 7 x64.

The Milestone is an unofficial port, and USB tethering is not yet supported. There is a feature request on their issue tracker for this.

The most recent comment on the above mentioned ticket indicates that it's been fixed as of 7.1.0-RC15 and should now be included.


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What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen?
Many people refer to Android versions by "codenames" rather than version numbers (e.g. Android "Gingerbread"). What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen?

Each version of Android since 1.5 has been developed with a specific codename. These codenames are chosen alphabetically and have thus far been dessert items (or, generically, sweet/sugary foods). Some codenames are associated with more than one version number, while others are limited to only a specific one, and the reason for this inconsistency is not currently known. The naming typically appears to correspond to changes in the developer API levels, but this is not always true (example: 3.0 and 3.1 are both "Honeycomb" but have different API levels).
The following names are used for the currently existing Android releases. Note that versions 1.0 and 1.1 were not publicly named. However, Android 1.1 was internally referred to as "Petit-Four" (noted in Traroth's answer, confirmed here). Also, starting from Android 10, Google stops announcing the codename publicly and instead referred to the version number, though they may still have the codename for internal purposes (reff: XDA):
Cupcake:

Android 1.5

Donut:

Android 1.6

Eclair:

Android 2.0
Android 2.1

Froyo: (short for "frozen yogurt")

Android 2.2

Gingerbread:

Android 2.3

Honeycomb:

Android 3.0
Android 3.1
Android 3.2

Ice Cream Sandwich:

Android 4.0

Jelly Bean:

Android 4.1
Android 4.2
Android 4.3

KitKat:

Android 4.4

Lollipop:

Android 5.0
Android 5.1

Marshmallow:

Android 6.0

Nougat: (official name: https://twitter.com/Android/status/748642375908589568)

Android 7.0
Android 7.1

Oreo:

Android 8.0
Android 8.1

Pie:

Android 9.0

Android 10 (Quince Tart)
Android 11 (Red Velvet Cake)
Android 12 (Snow Cone)
Android 13 (Tiramisu)
Android 14 (Upside Down Cake)

Eldarerathis summarized it very well. To add some things: The 1.1 version was internally called Petit Four by Google, and that's how it all began. Google is installing a giant pastry on their lawn at Mountain View each time a new version is about to be launched.
You can see pictures of that display at different stages here:
 Donut, Android logo, Nexus one, Cupcake, Eclair
Froyo
 Gingerbread, Icecream Sandwich, Honeycomb
 KitKat, Jellybean
 Lollipop

Marshmallow

Nougat

Oreo

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html#ApiLevels contains a table that links all the naming mess, excerpt:
Platform Version    API Level    VERSION_CODE
Android 6.0         23           M
Android 5.1         22           LOLLIPOP_MR1
Android 5.0         21           LOLLIPOP
...

Web archive link.

Just a heads-up that this list doesn't seem to reflect codenames anymore since M. P has released already, yet M/N/O's dessert names aren't in.


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How to tether an old Android 2.1 phone with the Asus Transformer
I want to tether my Samsung Europia to my Asus Transformer so I can use my phone 3g connection.
Is this possible? The Samsung doesn't have native tethering built in.

Acutally for the samsung Europia, a free update can be downloaded via Kies to upgrade to android 2.2. This then allows you to natively turn your phone into a wifi hotspot. It's then the usual connect to wifi affair

Is your phone rooted?  If so, try using the WiFi Tether app.  You will need to download the APK and side-load it.


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Google Music app update in UK
I am UK based and have a Nexus 1 and Nexus S both running stock Android 2.3.4.
On both devices, I have a manual update pending for the Music app from Google Inc., but when I go in to the Market to view this app, I get an AlertDialog telling me that "The requested item could not be found."
I understand that Google Music is only available in the US, but why is the Market telling me that I need to update the app, only to tell me that it is not available when I try to?

Interesting. I'm getting the same problem, but I assumed it was because I'd side loaded the update when it became available and the Marketplace doesn't know where the apk is.

It's just an updated version of the Music App (new, fancy UI), supposedly ready for full Google Music Cloud, for when it comes to the UK.
I was unable to view the details in the market like yourself, but I could actually do the update. Nexus S on 2.3.4 too.
Did you by any chance get an update notification for Google Books too?

I never actually tried long clicking on it and selecting "Update". Doing that installs it.


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What's the difference between Android 2.2 Froyo and Android v1.6 Donut?
I am really new to Android and I barely know about it.
I now want to buy an Archos device that should be an alternative to iPod and its size should be like the iPod.
I saw there are different Archos devices.
I am doubting between the Internet tablet (Android 2.2 Froyo) 43 and the 48/5 (Android v1.6 Donut).
What is a better OS? What is more advanced?
My desires:
Mandatory:

Audio/Video playback (flash)
Wifi (Gmail, GCal sync)
eBook reader
Pocket size (iPod size or so)

Desired but not mandatory:

Voice mic (for potential web conversation, and recording)
Video/photo camera
FM receiver

BTW, I just saw Android 3.1 is out, is it possible to update these devices with the new OS?

There are HUGE differences between 1.6 and 2.2. 1.6 is also a pretty old version of android. Flash is only available for 2.2 and later, so if you have to have flash then you need to go with 2.2. But the archos 43 does not have an FM receiver, the 48 has a receiver, and transmitter.
The UI had big improvements in 2.2 compared to 1.6. The ability to install apps on an external sdcard is also available on 2.2, but I don't think you will really need that as the 48 says it has 500GB (that seems like a lot for a device like that...). I have also read that it is possible to install froyo on the 48.
3.x is currently only available on select devices as they have to "partner" with google in order to have access to Honeycomb (3.x). So I wouldn't expect to see an update on these devcies anytime soon for 3.x.

+1 I see. So bottom line, according to my desires listed above, what device is best for me (I don't care what brand or even OS, just a device that will give me the above features, anything in the market)? In fact, I would surely buy the iPod Touch 4, but I heard that transferring media from PC must be thru iTunes, this is evil and I cannot accept this. Any recommendations on any device that suits me would be really welcome. Thank you.

Really, product recommendations are off topic, which is why I tried to stay away from that in the answer. you will have to take the differences between the devices you are looking at and see what features are best for your.

Android 2.2 also introduced a better just-in-time compiler, so the system runs quite a bit faster than before. Features list here.


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What is the correct format/resolutoin for videos on an HTC Wildfire?
i currently own a HTC Wildfire. I am well aware of its "lower" CPU speed than its HTC brothers, nevertheless, it is a great phone and I'm very happy with it.
I tried putting a mp4/m4p video (around 330mb) and the built-in video player crashed.
Can anyone guide me on the correct format/resolution I can use on this phone? Additionally, if I do have to convert an existing video, what software do I use?
I appreciate all inputs, thanks!

sorry, haven't updated this in a while. Since i was only using the free 2GB MicroSD bundled with the phone, this was causing the problem. so I purchased a 16GB, this fixed the issue. thanks!

Your new card probably has a better data transfer rate.

Have you tried using VPlayer?  It should handle any mp4, avi, divx, etc. video that you throw at it, without the need of converting it.


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How to configure HTC Desire for 3g connectivity in Peru?
How can I configure an unlocked HTC Desire for 3g connectivity in Peru?
I have managed to add an APN so that I have EDGE but I would like to use Claro's 3.5g.
I also have an iPhone with the same kind of dataplan that has 3g pre-configured so I am hoping that it is possible.
I realize that this is a very specific question but I can´t get any worse help than at the Claro office...

@aescobal I have internet, but only EDGE as the model of HTC Desire I have, does not seem to support the band used by Claro, see the approved answer.

In order to connect to a given 3G/3.5G network, your phone must support the correct band.
Based on the sparse information I was able to gather, it seems that Claro is using bands II and V (1900 and 850)
It seems that there are at least three different models of the HTC Desire, of which the HTC Triumph / Desire US A8182 and HTC Desire Telstra A8183 support bands II and V.  The third model, HTC Desire A8181 supports bands I and VIII instead.
If your phone has the correct APN, supports the correct bands, and 3G is not disabled it should just work.

Thanks a lot, although it seems a bit more complicated than I was hoping for. I have an A8181 so I guess it's not going to work in Peru, I didn't realize 3G and normal GMS communication use different bands :-(


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How do I Switch off NFC?
My Nexus S alerts me when it is close to my Oyster season ticket.
It says New Tag Collected. Unknown tag type.
Can I stop it doing this.

According to the Gingerbread User Guide, under Settings -> Wireless & networks, you should have an NFC option that you can remove the tick from to turn this on or off.


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How come my my HTC Desire Z sometimes doesn't notify me about a new SMS?
My HTC Desire Z has developed an issue (well several, but just one for this question) where it doesn't always notify me of a new message. When a new message arrives, I expect:

the phone to beep (well ring tone), and
there to be an indicator in the notification area until I look at the message or clear notifications.

This does happen the majority of the time, but sometimes neither of these things happen. But if I open the Messages app, there is the new message. This is really quite annoying, so does anyone know ways to fix this? Are there alternative SMS apps that might be different, or is this functionality an OS thing? Would using, say, CyanogenMod fix it, or at least be worth a try? Is it possible that the formatting of particular contacts would cause such a problem? Any other ideas?
Version info:

Phone: HTC Desire Z (Vodafone UK)
Android: 2.2.1
Kernel: 2.6.32.21-g540976a htc-kernel@and18-2 #1
Build Number: 1.72.161.1 CL296256 release-keys

I am having the same problem. I removed Handcent because it was performing abysmally slow. I guess we'll all have to lean heavily on HTC for an update. At least messages don't take minutes to send anymore.

Since you're still receiving the messages, the app must just be buggy.  You could try using the Handcent SMS app instead.

I've switched to that now, and I'll see how I go.

This has solved it for me :) Since switching to Handcent I haven't missed a test message, and additionally my phone hasn't crashed, which previously it was doing rather regularly. Thank you.

Great! Glad it worked.

Wow, that so didn't solve the problem.

@PP01 Feel free to post a "real" solution.  In lieu of one, Handcent is obviously a useful workaround.

Actually Handcent is rubbish. I had to remove it because it was severely slow. Ultimately HTC need to repair the messaging system. Like I said, at least messages don't take a full minute to merely send (like they did before Christmas). Point is, we want to know how to make the stock messaging app notify about messages correctly: not just use a 3rd party product - it's a suggestion but certainly not an "answer".

@PP01 This isn't your question. Not to mention you can't make buggy software magically work correctly, and this sounds like a bug. I've also never heard anyone complain about Handcent. If this isn't what you want, then post your own question.  (Link to this one and explain why you're not interested in a workaround, so that it's not closed as a duplicate).

I've got news for you: lots of people read this site. Lots of people have similar problems (and I am experiencing the same problem). So not everyone that experiences the same problem posts the same question. Oh, and by the way, you've heard someone complain about Handcent now: me!

I don't see how that's relevant.  This question has been answered to the asker's satisfaction and is not likely to receive any more answers.  If you would like this answered to your satisfaction, it's unlikely to happen here.  So I suggest you ask your own question.  And since we are no longer talking about the content of my answer, please take this to Meta if you want to discuss it further.

How much free internal space do you have on your phone?  When my phone has too many services running or doesn't have enough free internal space then services will get killed left and right, therefore the messaging service won't run to alert me of a new message.  Try uninstalling some apps or moving them to the SD card.  You can check for any unnecessary running services under Settings -- > Applications --> Running Services.

I have 846MB of internal phone storage. The running services looks OK aswell - there are 6 services listed, and at the bottom the bar is 2/3 green (Avail: 113MB + 126MB in 16). But I shall check this again when I've missed a message to see if more stuff is in there.

I had this same problem and all I did to fix it was restart my phone!  Worked like a charm!


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How to set static IP address for wi-fi connection?
How can I set manually the IP Address for wifi?

Hit the hard menu button on your phone and then choose Settings.
From there, browse to the Wireless controls section and then choose Wi-Fi Settings
Whilst in the Wi-Fi Settings section, push the hard menu button again and select Advanced.
Press Use static IP to put a check in the box and then enter the network settings as per your own network.

If you’re not sure what your settings are, and assuming you’re using Windows:

Open a command prompt by clicking Start, then Run
Type in cmd and hit Enter
Type the line ipconfig -all and hit Enter, the relevant details should be listed there.

Just make sure you use a different number for IP address on your phone than is shown on your PC!

A great app called WiFi Static that automatically switches between static and dynamic addressing dependent on the wireless network you connect to

If you control the network, you may be able to configure your DHCP server to always assign the same IP for your phone's MAC address.   This has the advantage of working even if you (for example) do a factory reset of the phone, or otherwise revert the wifi settings.
My Linksys E2000 router supports this via a button labelled "DHCP Reservation" on the Basic setup screen, and any host-based DHCP server would allow this as well.

This is what I do, and is a better solution than setting the IP to static on your phone if you plan on connecting to more than one network.  If your router doesn't show connected devices, you can find your phone's MAC address at Settings->About Phone->Status and then scrolling down to "Wi-Fi MAC address" to enter it manually.

Thanks, this  (the MAC address - IP address link on the DHCP server) is also a a solution to my recent question: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/232197/why-im-unable-to-set-a-wifi-static-ip-address


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Difference between Super LCD screen of Nexus S and Super AMOLED screen of Samsung Galaxy S -- Which is better?
I was wondering has anyone of you experience the difference among super LCD screen of Nexus S, and Super AMOLED screen of Samsung Galaxy S? Which type of screen is better?

Better for what? "Better" is pretty subjective. Is there some objective measure you're looking for?

As Ryan has pointed out there isn't that much of a difference between Super AMOLED and Super LCD screens - chances are you will be hard pressed to see the colour difference unless you have two mobiles side by side (or at least the difference is small enough it shouldn't really be an issue)
From what I've read, where the two differ are:

Battery usage - AMOLED uses less power, thus longer use of the phone on one battery charge.
Screen glare (under the sun) - LCD screens I believe have less glare and are more 'readable' compared to the standard AMOLED. Supposedly the Super AMOLED has improved from the AMOLED and is more readable under the sun too.

edit:
It seems like Super AMOLED has indeed improved compared to AMOLED. According to engadget, Super AMOLED is now similar to LCD - both are slightly more visible than AMOLED under the sun.

Super AMOLED, AMOLED, LCD (screens left to right)

I think you have LCD and AMOLED reversed in your second point.  I experience much less glare with my AMOLED screen than I ever have with an LCD.  Plus the AMOLED can go so bright, even in direct sunlight it's visible.

I've never had the chance to compare actual, physical phones with LCD/AMOLED/Super AMOLED screens - only been able to get information from reviews/articles.
Updated my answer with a bit more information regarding the screens and glare.

Gotcha.  +1 for research!

The US Nexus S has a Super AMOLED, But a lot of manufactures are moving to Super LCD for the screens because of the "Super AMOLED Shortages". Even the Galaxy S 2 is supposed to have a Super LCD.
From an engadget article comparing the two...

there really is no clear winner between SLCD and AMOLED when it comes to picture quality -- the former offers a sharper picture plus a more realistic color reproduction, whereas the latter shows off brighter, more vibrant colors. But as we concluded earlier, AMOLED seems to be slightly ahead of the game with its power efficiency

Now, I am not really sure if there is a big difference between AMOLED and Super AMOLED, but as you can see, visually, there isn't much of a difference between AMOLED and Super LCD. Super AMOLED is going to produce a darker black, as Super AMOLED doesn't transmit any light at all when displaying black, which helps on battery.

The most notable difference seems to be the rendering of black, where the Super AMOLED display rocks the socks off of the Super-LCD.

(Source: Comparison of Nexus-S models on flickr)
Otherwise the points seem to be that the SAMOLED takes less power and is a little bit thinner and lighter. The "vivid" colors may actually lead to over-saturation, but it doesn't look like a problem I'd worry about.


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How come some apps won't download from Market?
I have a rather odd thing happening to three apps in the Market, all free. I tried to install Google Maps and Angry Birds Seasons from the market, but the downloads or installations failed and now I can't download them at all. They both show up under My Apps but rather than the Update or Installed statuses that all other apps in My Apps show, these two show FREE. When I try to install them all goes normally until the message displays saying the download is happening, but it doesn't. The downloading icon appears in the status bar for the briefest moment before disappearing again.
I have Aldiko Book Reader installed and indicating that there is an update available. I believe that the download or install failed when I first tried to update and now the behaviour is the same as described above. I try to update but the download doesn't happen.
I have successfully updated and installed other apps in the meantime. For now it's only those three that are stuck. The initial cause of download/install failure may have been lack of memory but there should be enough memory available now.
I am using an HTC Desire running CyanogenMod-7.0.0-RC2 (Gingerbread 2.3.3). Anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this problem? I've looked at the Market in application management but the clear cache and clear data options are not available.

Do you have space for the downloads?

"I've looked at the Market in application management but the clear cache and clear data options are not available." That's a big problem; you should always be able to clear the Market data (unless you haven't run it since you last cleared data).  CM7 has tons of Market issues (google "cm7 market problem" and you'll see); hopefully the next version is better.

simple2ext (as described here: http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/20328-solution-to-unable-to-download-big-apps-from-the-market/ ) did the job for me. I am also running CM 7.0.3 and had problems with downloading big apps from market. Sometimes it helped clearing the dalvik cache but not always.

Indeed. I too found this a few weeks back but forgot to add some comment here.

I had something similar happen to me months ago, and the only solution I found was to make sure my apps and accounts were synced with Google and doing a factory reset.  The thing was I was stock at the time, and I don't know how a factory reset will affect CyanogenMod.  I'd jump on their forums and see if anyone else is having a similar issue, and if not you should submit a bug report to them so they can see if it's a bug in their release candidate.
Edit: Since this is a pretty old question and CyanogenMod has been updated I think it would be worth it for you to upgrade to 7.0.3.  I haven't had any issues at all with the market now that I've moved to a stable version of CM7 so hopefully your issue has been resolved in the newest stable release.

@Steve Crane - Any luck?

Cleared the cache partition and Dalvik cache in recovery and was then able to download updates of some apps that wouldn't download before. Am still unable to download some apps like Google Maps though.

Well at least that's something, I suppose.


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Setting Protonmail on default email mobile phone app
On my android samsung edge s6 I added a new protonmail account. The phone alerts me saying the server doesn't answer.
Here the configuration I tried:
IMAP server: 127.0.0.1,TLS,port: 143
SMTP server: 127.0.0.1,TLS,port: 587
--------------------------------------------
IMAP server: 127.0.0.1,SSL,port: 993
SMTP server: 127.0.0.1,SSL,port: 465
--------------------------------------------
IMAP server: 127.0.0.1,SSL,port: 1143
SMTP server: 127.0.0.1,SSL,port: 1025

I has been always alerted that "it is not possible to connect with the server".
The app email manager is the samsung's default one.

The server address can not be correct. 127.0.0.1 is always your device, hence the Protonmail server would have to be located on your Android phone - which is not the case unless there is a ProtonMail app that redirects the data to the real server. Hence it looks like you understood something wrong how to set-up a Protonmail account.

I was confident about 127.0.0.1 because I saw https://stackoverflow.com/a/56554287. I was wrong. Thank you.

Protonmail does not work on Android in third party Mail applications (because the ProtonMail Bridge application is not available for Android). You have to use the web interface or the ProtonMail app.
Cite from the ProtonMail help pages:

At this time Protonmail does not integrate with third party email clients (IMAP/SMTP) on Android due to the technology ProtonMail utilizes within web browsers to encrypt and decrypt your messages. [source]

One convoluted solution would be to have a Linux-based server running Proton Mail Bridge that is available to the phone on the Cloud or through VPN (say available at home if using a robust firewall like OpenVPN).
If more details are required, please ask.


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Is TWRP OS-version specific?
I have a Vsmart Joy 1 phone, running VOS/Android 8.1.0
I found a port of TWRP recovery for Vsmart Joy 1s here (translation), but it says "Android 9.0 VOS..."
Does this mean that I should/have to upgrade to VOS/Android 9.0 to be able to use TWRP properly (the end goal is to root the phone)? Or, can I flash it on my phone as is, without upgrading?

Recovery is an independent OS and it works even if there is no ROM (main OS) installed on device. The code used to build TWRP must have been taken from AOSP 9.0

Does that mean that I can install it, and it'll work?

If it's legit then yes, but I found that ported recoveries and roms rarely work, I may be wrong tho.

Thank you for the response, in the case that it isn't legit, will my phone be soft-bricked or something like that?

You don't have to install TWRP for starting it. Via fastboot boot <image name> you can boot TWRP directly. That greatly reduces the possibility to cause trouble for your device.

Ok, thanks, I'm going to try that

yes, TWRP is built OS-version specific
the reason is changes in android versions may differ in

encryption type
file system type
partition layout
mount point

most (if not all) updates are backwards compatible. that means the TWRP is ready for android 9 but you can still run android 8 on your device

Could that be why I TWRP is telling me that my password is incorrect?

authors: Једноруки Крстивоје


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Android Outlook over IMAP is logging in from Microsoft servers
Using Microsoft Outlook app for Android I could not add an Outlook-IMAP account on some Android tablet for some customer. However, it was no problem to add the same IMAP account to the GMail App, or some other mail Clients on the same tablet. Or to Thunderbird on Windows, even Outlook on Windows worked fine...
I wondered what the heck is going on. updated outlook on android, no change. So i setup an Test-Mail-Server and sniffed the network traffic. Turns out that my device was not talking to the Mail-Server but some Microsoft servers where... what?? got logins to my IMAP from 52.125.138.21 and 52.125.139.100. WHOIS... 52.125.0.0 - 52.127.255.255 -> Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)...
Why are they logging in to my IMAP Server with user and password... why is Andorid-Outlook telling my SECRET password to some servers @ Microsoft... and... do i have to assume they pass my credentials and all mails so some 3Letter agency? It's just stupid to transport all IMAP communication to MS and from there to the tablet.
So the question is: Is there any way to force Outlook on a Android tablet to directly communicate with the IMAP-Server? I set imap.myserver.ch:993 in the advanced settings... but this also leads to MS logging in and get all mails... still no traffic from tablet to IMAP-Server.
I'm useing Oultook Version 4.2025.3 (42025807) on a Galaxy Tab S6 Android Version 10

Looks like you have not read the the small print before using the
Microsoft Outlook app for Android.
Yes, what you have detected is the way the Outlook Android app works. Outlook is not an IMAP client, instead username and password are transmitted to a cloud server (named "Exchange Online") that saves these info and then logs into your mailbox, does what ever it is supposed to do in background and also allows your Outlook app to access your mailbox as well. See also the official documentation by Microsoft on that topic.
I assume access to IMAP folders is only for backward compatibility. The real target of Outlook app is accessing Outlook.com and cloud based Exchange servers. In this scenario the password is not stored on the Microsoft server, instead a generated token is used for user authentication towards the Exchange server. However all your mail, calendar and contact data still passes the Microsoft cloud servers.
BTW: This app and it's backend has not been developed by Microsoft. Instead Microsoft bought a company named "Acompli" and they are the creator of this system.

Hi Robert, thanks a lot for your detailed answer... and no, i didn't read the small print :/

Extremely interesting thank you

The link does not mention IMAP at all. It is clear they are mostly focused on O365; can't really see why they would bother to push IMAP traffic hither and yon, tbh. It's not as if other apps don't manage to handle it direct on Android (and better).

@MandyShaw IMAP is not explicitly mentioned, but it belongs implicitly to the methods that do not allow "modern hybrid authentication". And the system was designed by Acompli as it is, may be the primary goal was to built their own cloud based groupware system and access to external mail boxes was originally just planned as some sort of transition period? Who knows - the system is now as it is.


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How can I import a VCARD file (contact information) via a QR code into Android contacts?
I would like to generate a QR code for my contact information to put on a website or my phone to show people. They should be able to scan it and import it automatically to their phone contacts. All I have found on the internet were solutions converting a VCARD text into a QR code. QR code scanners parse it as a text (scan works) but they are not able to parse it as contact information and pass it on the contacts app to be imported. I wonder how to manage this.
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=utf-8:Doe;John;;;
FN;CHARSET=utf-8:John Doe
ORG;CHARSET=utf-8:Dunder Mifflin
TITLE;CHARSET=utf-8:Manager
URL;WORK:dunder.com
EMAIL;WORK:john@dunder.com
TEL;CELL:+15551122334
ADR;WORK;CHARSET=utf-8:;;;Scranton;;;USA
END:VCARD

Edit: hosting the VCF file with the correct mime type let's you download the file and import it. But this is unnecessarily cumbersome. I think that a direct import from the QR code should be possible.

Might be related: What vCard formats/versions and encodings are supported for import?

Are you open to other formats?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeCard_(QR_code) is more compact and works for me.

It was definitely worth a try. Turns out that like a VCard some apps can recognize it while the camera app wasn't but the suggested app can also parse MeCard. Nevertheless, compacted code is of course better, therefore MeCard has a clear advantage.

Just as a clarification for the other answers:
This will depend on the app you use to scan the code - that app must support the VCARD format.
On recent Android versions (since Android 8, I believe) the standard camera app supplied by Google or the manufacturer usually supports QR codes, and also supports the VCARD format - so if you use stock Android, the camera app should work.
If your camera app does not support VCARD QR codes (for example the app in some versions of LineageOS), you can use a dedicated code scanning app which does. Some examples:

QR Scanner (PFA), available in Google Play and also on F-Droid
Barcode Scanner, available on F-Droid

On recent Android versions the camera app has a built-in QR code reader. If you point the camera on the QR code a small text containing the contact name John Doe - as shown in the screenshot (from a Pixel4a running Android 13).
If the user taps on the name a dialog opens that asks what to do with the contact, e.g. adding it to the default address book (Google Contacts).

My lineageos camera app has the integrated QR code scanner as well but it does not offer an option to import into contacts. I downloaded another scanner application, this did not manage either. It is often recognized as "TEXT". There are Android users without Google as well.

@VPNer: Yes, it depends on the app you use. I added a clarifying answer.

I have by chance stumbled upon this app on F-Droid, which can import it.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.secuso.privacyFriendlyCodeScanner/
It appears that the Vcard and the QR code were fine but LineageOS integrated scanner and another app I tried were not able to recognize a VCard.