
The time displayed on most Android phones is wrong - Garbage
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/the-time-displayed-on-most-android-phones-is-wrong/19387
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kalleboo
Do "most Android phones" really get their time automatically GPS? On all the
ones I've used (HTC Hero, Xperia X10, Xperia Arc), I had to set the time
manually (and ended up using ClockSync)

edit: the bug tracker issue linked in the article seems to suggest it's a
problem with Motorola phones only
<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5485>

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nerdtalker
I have a bunch of Android phones here (developer/reviewer) and none except for
Motorola phones (Droid 4, Droid Bionic) seem to set the time 15 seconds ahead
checking using <http://time.is>

For example, the Droid 4 was 14.6 seconds off, and Droid Bionic was 14.8
seconds off...

This seems to be a vendor specific issue, as none of the non-motorola phones
(Galaxy Nexus GSM/UMTS, Galaxy Nexus CDMA/LTE on VZW, Nexus S, Galaxy Note,
Tab 10.1LE, a Qualcomm development MDP) are anywhere near 15 seconds, all are
+/- fractions of a second, like you'd expect.

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bad_user
I have a Galaxy S (the first one) and it's only 0.9 seconds off.

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viraptor
My GS2 is also 0.9 of accurate time according to time.is, I wonder if it's
just a coincidence or something common... (UK network time being off
slightly?)

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brunnsbe
Interesting. But doesn't most phones get their time from the operator via the
cellular network and not via GPS?

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lini
Yes, they do. Unfortunately, the time my (GSM) operator sends is off by 2
minutes when I compare it to GPS data or the NTP synced clock on any desktop.
So this feature is not very useful and I will be very happy if I see NTP sync
in a future Android version.

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joelhaasnoot
This is a known (Android?) bug apparently, have had Vodafone here in NL
confirm it. They don't know what it is either... I've had drifts of up to 4
minutes.

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rogerbinns
To be accurate the time is not set from GPS. Turning on the GPS uses a lot of
power. All that is happening is that some phones when converting times into
the local timezone are not accounting for leap seconds. (The number of seconds
since Jan 1, 1970 or the 1982 epoch of GPS is unchanged - it is just our human
foibles with timezones and arbitrary rule calculations that are messed up.)
And only for some phones.

My iPod Touch and Android Phone (HTC) have exactly the same (local) time and
both are set to automatic.

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knurdle
Good to know when I'm trying to disable the bomb the super villain has planted
and I think I have a minute left until it blows up but I really only have 45
seconds left. Oh wait, maybe the bomb timing mechanism is built on the android
platform and I really do have a minute left.

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spindritf
I was always convinced that "network-provided" time means provided by the GSM
operator over GSM. FWIW time on my phone is off by 1.4s according to time.is
so it seems to be unaffected by the bug.

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wccrawford
I just checked my stock Galaxy S2, and it was almost 2 minutes out. After
enabling the automatic time setting, I checked again and it was like 1.9
seconds out.

Doesn't seem to be a problem here, either.

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ragmondo
It also messes up 2 factor authentication as well. I've raised this on the
google developers, android developers plus groups but I guess if you aint a
googler, then it's like p*ssing into the wind....

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rosser
This doesn't appear to be the case on ICS. My Galaxy Nexus tracks with the
clock on my MBA, which is synced to Apple's NTP server.

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nooneelse
Another Galaxy Nexus reporting in here, according to time.is, 0.7 seconds
behind.

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chmars
Interesting. I had always assumed smartphones would use NTP servers.

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webjunkie
Check <http://time.is/> in your phone's browser. My Android is 1 minute fast
:(

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rolandboon
Can it be that the bug is fixed in Cyanogen? My Nexus One with Cyanogen is 0.2
seconds off according to time.is.

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webjunkie
I'm running Cyanogen... so at least for me it's not fixed.

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toomuchtodo
My Nexus One running CM7 is also 0.2 seconds off.

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dlokshin
On a somewhat related note, the GPS on lots of Android phones is more
seriously broken than this. For AlpineReplay (app that tracks skiers and
snowboarders) we routinely get visits that happen in the future. GPS timing is
often off by 24 hours, 12 hours. Most common on Samsung phones but we've found
it on HTC and LG as well.

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sp332
It's not _just_ GPS. Any time source that has added the "leap seconds" will be
misinterpreted by Android, because Android doesn't compensate for leap
seconds. So if your cellular network or other time server has leap seconds,
your Android phone will be wrong even it never sets the clock via GPS.

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chulett
The site says "Tyson talks about the issue at the 15m 20s mark" but it's
actually at 56m 20s.

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InclinedPlane
This is really odd, I'd expect on a cdma network for the clock to of necessity
be slaved to the network clock, seeing as that is required to be in the
network. Is there another internal clock or some other mode of operation going
on?

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JoshTriplett
CDMA radios do that internally.

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kelnos
_It seems like an easy bug to fix..._

People who haven't looked at the code aren't allowed to suggest that. Period.

 _... so I’m surprised it’s been ignored for so long._

Because 15 seconds doesn't really matter in any practical sense? Pretty much a
non-story.

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jamesaguilar
Disagree. If something like this is hard to fix, there is something wrong with
the way the code is designed.

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Someone
I do not know the code; nevertheless, I disagree. The moment you allow for
leap seconds, you need to visit your apps. Can they display x hours, y
minutes, 60 seconds? (IIRC, 61 seconded can occur, too). You also need to
consider how and how often you update your 'current number of leap seconds'
store, you have to add 'across leap seconds' checks to all duration
calculations, in addition to 'across DST change' checks, etc. You also will
have to decide, on a per call basis, what the programmer intended with a call
('one day later' or 'same time on the next day' or 'about 24 hours later, also
on the whole hour'?) oftentimes, the programmer will not even have realized
that these are different options. And heaven forbid if somebody does a
calculation now for a future date, and some time later a leap second is
announced for some moment before that future date.

I do not think a really nice design is possible here. There just are too many
idiosyncrasies in time handling.

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jamesaguilar
You are talking about display issues of leap seconds. That's a different
problem from the one we're talking about, which is that the clock itself is
wrong.

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Someone
It is a different problem, but it largely disappears if the system does not do
leap seconds.

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jamesaguilar
Yep, you can get rid of UI problems by not having a screen too.

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dpres
The best part of the video in my opinion
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ekc3uRPlILU#t=16m50s)

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kapupetri
I'd just compared my Android galaxy S2 to NTP synchronized clock and they
change minuter indicator about the same time. So this is not a bug in all
devices...

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NameNickHN
My phone gets its time via the carrier network. It's, nevertheless, not
accurate though.

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yoblin
Looks like it's fixed in cyanogenmod, at least on my phone. The app clocksync
can show you how off you are.

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ktizo
Getting an android phone was what finally convinced me that Google is a
brilliant marketing company.

Before getting one I was convinced that Google were able to write software.

[edit] I want text messaging to work properly. Without doing a system upgrade.
Text messaging should not be a hard problem. :(

