In April of 2014, I reported a very minor bug in some official android documentation.

Four years later, in 2018, the bug was still present. But for some reason Google decided to simply mark it as "won't fix" and close it.

I added a comment to explain that the problem still existed and was still relevant for anyone trying to follow their Java code sample. Google reopened the bug and assigned it to someone else.

Then, in 2019, Google again tried to clear the bug by simply marking it "obsolete." So I provided the line of code that should change and what it should change to. Google reassigned it again, but, when the assignee tried to fix it, some new technical snag blocked it.

Finally, the bug was escalated to the development team. And now, a little more than six years later, someone actually fixed it.

So, yeah, the system works.

Recently I tried to update a Google Play Store listing that contained text something like this:

UPDATE (February 12, 2019): I have unpublished the HowFarNow app on the Google Play Store because the permission to send SMS messages automatically is no longer available to apps that do not serve as the main SMS Messages app and do not fit into other narrow categories defined by Google. Google changed this policy recently in order to eliminate malware apps that scanned one’s SMS messages looking for sensitive security codes, etc. (My app does not do that and never did, but because permission to send SMS messages is no longer available to apps like mine, the HowFarNow app’s ability to automatically deliver text messages in a hands free manner has, in effect, been removed by Google. I did try to convince Google that my app was using the permission in accordance with one of their predefined categories, but did not succeed. I also tried to convince them to create a new category for apps such as mine, but failed there too. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.)

The READ_CONTACTS permission is required if you look up a contact (using the code below) on a pre-Marshmallow device (API 23). But, on Marshmallow or above, you don’t seem to need READ_CONTACTS even though READ_CONTACTS is a dangerous permission.

I find it easy to forget that the “Guideline” element in a ConstraintLayout requires a value from 0 to 1 for its “layout_constraintGuide_percent” attribute:

“People are implementing IPv6 only networks with DHCPv6. Please implement RFC 3315.” by someone named Tyler.

I happened across this problem while using the Android SDK’s TextUtils.isDigitsOnly() method recently.

From Previewing Android P:

Trying out Flutter’s “hot reload” feature, I have to say: it’s really fast.

Took me 4 days to realize it, but they have officially released a stable version of Android Studio 3. Woo hoo.

For a Halloween mapping app I was working on recently, I wanted to change the color and typeface of items in the standard options menu.

Following up on my previous post, here’s a screenshot of the OSS license item for the popular Glide library as generated by version 11.2.2 of the new GPS OSS tools. There are two distinct OSS licenses for the Glide library and the GPS OSS tools finds both of them. But it concatenates the two URLs without a space or line break in between. They’re just stuck together:

This will save developers work and eliminate errors in the process.

Over three months ago, when the android team first announced Android Studio 3 , I installed it alongside Android Studio 2. But, after I ran into some mysterious bad behaviors, I decided to uninstall both versions. That solved the problem. But, I ultimately decided to reinstall only version 2 and wait for the stable 3.0 release to do a complete transition. I figured it would hit RC status pretty fast.

Hans Dockter gave a talk about the Android Gradle build system at Big Android BBQ 2015. (No bbq for me … saw it on youtube … woo hoo) 

The short answer is: Parcelable implementations are overly complicated and brittle,  I’m bad at finding and fixing “Unmarshalling unknown type code” errors and I’m tired of being surprised by them.

It looks like Android is now offering percentage based spacing in a new layout object.

If you’re writing an android compound control and you want to save state between config changes, you may want to tell the Android SDK to butt out.

One way to couple a dynamically updating TextView with a SeekBar is to use a TextSeekBar.

Sorry. The Google Play Store has informed me that my ad-free, free, non-profit avocado browser app for Android violated the terms and conditions of the store. They have suspended the app.

I’ve released an open source library for reading the real-time Bluetooth data stream from a Contec Medical Systems Pulse Oximeter (model CMS50FW).

This privacy policy governs your use of the software application CMS50FWLib Test App (“Application”) for mobile devices that was created by Albert Braun. The Application is designed to test the CMS50FWLib open source library.

WifiDLite is my experimental, alpha-version, open-source Android library which tries to make it easier to do basic WiFi Direct tasks.

UPDATE: On 02/11/2015, Google removed this app from the Google Play Store.

This privacy policy governs your use of the software application Browzacado (“Application”) for mobile devices that was created by Albert Braun. The Application is designed to provide information about avocado varieties based on user selected criteria.

America is television’s greatest invention.

There are those who plan meticulously. There are those who fly by the seat of their pants. And then there are those who fly by the seat of their pants, become airborne, and say, “Let’s see what happens if I take these off…”