“Ice Cream Sandwich” and WRITE_APN_SETTINGS

Question

Does anybody know how to write app for "Ice Cream Sandwich" using WRITE_APN_SETTINGS permission ? WRITE_APN_SETTINGS is now ignored in ICS and code touching APNs fails.

Answer 1

Yes, Google high handedly decided to remove this. No dialogue comes up for confirmation, they simply make it fail. Thanks for acting like Apple! This ruins the user experience for users of non standard APNs (I'm on giffgaff which Google decided not to put on the official ICS list, once again, thanks). So I had to enter all the settings by hand. Think of all the users who simply wouldn't have a clue, this is insane.

You might like to make your feelings known to Google.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24227&can=1&q=WRITE_APN_SETTINGS&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=29264&can=1&q=WRITE_APN_SETTINGS&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars

Answer 2

Any of your favorite APN apps will work on ICS so long as you can set it as a system app. I use APN Manager Pro which is recognized by ICS as a 3rd party app, but after setting it up as a system app, I was able to write APN settings. Problem is in some cases MMS still will not work.

The key is to develop or install any APN editor as a system app.