Dealing with Android devices that lie about having a camera flash?

Question

I'm building a flashlight app and I've learned that when I call

this.getPackageManager().hasSystemFeature(PackageManager.FEATURE_CAMERA_FLASH),

the Nexus 7 returns true and when asking for the FlashModes() the size is 1 and the option is called "off." So when I check whether or not flash exists on devices, if the device lies about it, I can run into trouble. I've added !android.os.Build.MODEL.equals("Nexus 7") to my if statement to prevent crashing my app while testing on my Nexus 7.

If there are other devices that lie about having a flash, my app will likely crash on them. How can I avoid this?

Answer 1

you can implement a double check

after calling

this.getPackageManager().hasSystemFeature(PackageManager.FEATURE_CAMERA_FLASH)

check if

getSupportedFlashModes() returns null

if no

check if

flash modes only contains one entry  "off"