Google Android devices fool most users in Brazil

[Princess Luna]

Even without daylight saving time, thousands of Android-based devices have advanced an hour this past weekend.

Daylight Saving Time in Brazil was supposed to have occurred between Saturday (19) and Sunday (20), but was canceled by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro months ago.

 

While Apple and Microsoft OS were unaffected, thousands of Google Android users complains about their clocks advancing an hour despite the Daylight Saving Time in Brazil being cancelled months prior.

 

Below are translated parts of Brazilian source:

 

The problem was already foreseen. Last Friday, Google had posted an official announcement on its blog recommending Android users in all of Brazil to change their automatic date and time settings. Google also warned that the problem could happen again on November 3, when DST began in 2018.

 

Google also issued a note explaining the impact of the government measure on the IANA Global Database (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) used by smartphones and electronic devices to always ensure the right time.

"In practice, this means that some phones may not have the necessary information to prevent the handset clock from automatically changing as if daylight saving time is still running," -Google explained.

 

In one day, Google counted over 20,000 searches with the term "right time Brasilia" (Brazilian capital). On Twitter, confusion was one of the most talked about topics this Sunday morning. In a casual tone, some cell phone owners whose watches have advanced have linked the fact with opposition to the Bolsonaro government.

 

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Now this is a funny one, Google seems to have messed up a little in here, what was supposed to be a convenience feature end up causing plenty of issues. Was Google lazy to adjust this? They had plenty of time to fix this situation but seems nothing was made about it until the backlash after it happened from all those people who woke up an hour earlier than needed when their phone alarm set off.

 

Leave your comments on the matter!

[Jurrunio]

Waking up earlier is good for your health and being punctual at work, Google cares about everyone /s

[TempestCatto]

Imagine how many people were on time for things.

[bcredeur97]

wouldn't this be because of Android devices not getting timely updates?

[Levent]

The exact same thing happened in Turkey, AFAIR it was mitigated when NTP server configurations got updated.

[brwainer]

Google (or any individual company) isn’t responsible for finding any/all timezone changes and implementing them - that is the job of the IANA - the same group in charge of all the public IP addresses. Google and other companies are responsible for implementing any tz (the official name of the IANA timezone database) updates. 
 

tz release 2019b, which includes the Brazil change, was released July 2nd 2019: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz-announce/2019-July/000056.html

 

The problem Google faces, compared to Apple or Microsoft, is that when they put the updated tz database into an Android update, the manufacturers and cell carriers have to follow suit and push that update out. Google doesn’t have any other way to update this, since the tz database is a system file with the related security protections.

[ouroesa]

I had the same happen to me on Saturday morning, and I live in Australia.

[brwainer]

19 minutes ago, ouroesa said:

I had the same happen to me on Saturday morning, and I live in Australia.

Make sure your phone is set to use a time zone relating to your actual area (usually the nearest large city, or the name of the country/region) and not to something else that normally (for non-DST) has the same time offset from UTC. If it is set to some other area (just for an example, if someone is Africa was set to use a timezone from Europe) then the rules for DST would almost assuredly be wrong.

[ouroesa]

2 hours ago, brwainer said:

Make sure your phone is set to use a time zone relating to your actual area (usually the nearest large city, or the name of the country/region) and not to something else that normally (for non-DST) has the same time offset from UTC. If it is set to some other area (just for an example, if someone is Africa was set to use a timezone from Europe) then the rules for DST would almost assuredly be wrong.

It is set to automatic time zone. I just noticed it on Saturday morning and by noon, it reverted to the correct time. 

[vorticalbox]

13 hours ago, brwainer said:

Google doesn’t have any other way to update this, since the tz database is a system file with the related security protections.

actual google play services can push updates to the device without waiting for the carriers, this is why things like google settings and find my phone is available in almost all versions of android.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/179638/not-getting-android-os-updates-heres-how-google-is-updating-your-device-anyway/

[spartaman64]

5 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

actual google play services can push updates to the device without waiting for the carriers, this is why things like google settings and find my phone is available in almost all versions of android.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/179638/not-getting-android-os-updates-heres-how-google-is-updating-your-device-anyway/

if you are using google's clock you downloaded from the play store maybe but otherwise this would probably require a change to the operating system

[Taja]

Mine didnt have any time changes, unlike the computers in my workplace. Meh, I just was happy to see it was close to lunch time, just to be sad within seconds when I noticed the clock was just wrong.

[SeriousDad69]

This is why I will never touch an Android device, the updates are too slow or non-existent. Even on Android One and Google devices you only get 3-4 years of updates, compared to the 8 year old iPhone 4S that got one back in July of this year.

Edited October 26, 2019 by SeriousDad69
quote guy

[williamcll]

On 10/23/2019 at 2:43 AM, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

"Always one step ahead". Or one step back. Depends on perspective.

Time is relative, after all.