Since SDK 14, the preferred order is Cancel / OK in opposition to OK / Cancel before. I am NOT going to enter in the debate of whether it is a good o bad idea, this is not the subject of my question.
The thing is that the ADK encourages you to use the new order for devices with SDK >= 14 by giving you the following Lint
Layout uses the wrong button order for API >= 14: Create a layout-v14/layout.xml file with opposite order: Cancel button should be on the left (was "@string/send | Cancel", should be "Cancel | @string/ send")
OK, I will stick to that, this is not a problem for me and I understand that I should follow the advice in order to avoid annoying the users.
But here is the thing... On my Samsung Galaxy S II, running on ICS, the System interface itself seem not to follow the new order. Here are a few screenshot examples:
The order is the old one. Note that I use the official ICS version for my phone (not a custom ROM). And the order is the same on my Galaxy Tab 2 (also running official ICS). On some dialogs, the order is correct (cancel / OK) The only difference I see is the Theme (the dialogs using the Holo theme have the new order; the others, the old order). Here is a screenshot of a DatePickerDialog from the settings (to set the system date) and from my app using Holo:
This is quite disturbing. It looks like the order of the buttons is Theme-related and not version-related. Or is it just Samsung not following Android's design patterns?
I think that Activities (when they have OK / Cancel buttons) should also follow the same order. And here, again, on my phone the Create Event activity of the Calendar has the wrong order (And the activity does not use Hole theme):