Android TimeZone Turkey GMT

Question

For 2016 Turkish Government decided to stay GMT+3 timezone to save daylight, but on android:

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
TimeZone tz = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC");
calendar.setTimeInMillis(timestamp * 1000);
Date currentTimeZone = (Date) calendar.getTime();
calendar.add(Calendar.MILLISECOND, tz.getOffset(calendar.getTimeInMillis()));

So the problem is;
it's showing GMT+3 for the date before November:
Wed Oct 26 18:00:00 GMT+03:00 2016
but for after November:
Mon Nov 07 20:00:00 GMT+02:00 2016

it should've stay at GMT+3 for the whole year, is that a special issue to android lib of TimeZone or am I doing something wrong?
Thanks,

UPDATE
Although I've added a check for timezone and gmt parameters,
The situation will be a little chaotic for the Android devices that uses Turkey's timezone, cause after Oct 29 the hour of device will be an hour early than normal, until Android releases a update for that and user applies that.

TimeZone uses device's properties. You have to use directly GMT+03:00 or +02 in your case. — Vyacheslav, Oct 26 '16 at 12:58
It a proplem for each modern device if timezone is changed in a specific country — Vyacheslav, Oct 26 '16 at 13:03
Mobile operators could help to directly broadcast timezone to devices. — Vyacheslav, Oct 26 '16 at 13:05
What's the value for TimeZone("Turkey") for that dates? and also DST? — Madhukar Hebbar, Oct 26 '16 at 13:51
For reference, the Android tracking issue: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=226426 — Nicolas Raoul, Nov 07 '16 at 03:05

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 26 '16 at 16:20

5

See the release note of tzdb-database for version 2016g:

Release 2016g - 2016-09-13 08:56:38 -0700

Changes to future time stamps

Turkey switched from EET/EEST (+02/+03) to permanent +03,
effective 2016-09-07.  (Thanks to Burak AYDIN.)  
Use "+03" rather than an invented abbreviation for the new time.

Obviously, your Android device still uses an outdated timezone version. Actually you have following options to proceed:

Wait for a new Android version (not attractive, not recommended).
Use another external library like Joda-Time-Android or my library Time4A which already use 2016h (Threeten-ABP is still behind, actually on 2016e).
Or write your own hack using fixed offsets for Turkey, for example TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT+03")

answered Oct 26 '16 at 16:20

Meno Hochschild

42,708
7
104
126

Shouldn't that last one be `Etc/GMT-3` - or does Android have additional aliases? – Matt Johnson-Pint Oct 26 '16 at 16:23
@MattJohnson According to the [Android documentation](https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/TimeZone.html), writing "GMT+03" should be possible, and I would prefer it compared with the confusing notation based on Etc/GMT (due to opposite sign). – Meno Hochschild Oct 26 '16 at 17:08
Using one of these solutions will not work for android users in turkey, since they will not update anything. In my app I've decided to check for timezone and time checks which, is the user in Europe/Istanbul timezone and has GMT+2, but another problem occurs with this solution is not all android versions and devices has Europe/Istanbul timezone ID :( – Canberk Ozcelik Oct 31 '16 at 08:55
@CanberkÖzçelik If a user does not want to update anything then he/she must live with wrong local time. However, I don't believe that most users will accept a wrong time, so they stick any lazyness and will do something: a) update Android OS, b) update your app or c) override their system clock (not a recommended user hack). The only thing YOU can do is offering a new version of your app. – Meno Hochschild Oct 31 '16 at 11:46

Android TimeZone Turkey GMT

1 Answers1

Linked