Changing regional settings to English (UK)

Help Fairphone 1
1

Hi,

On the default Phone app the call history shows all dates using American format, i.e. MM/DD/YYYY … which is obviously the worst possible choice of all date formats! I’m in the UK so want either DD/MM/YYYY or even better, YYYY/MM/DD, which is how my phone settings are configured to show dates.

I’ve STFW for how to fix this on Android 4.2 and everybody suggests changing the Language & input -> Language settings to control the date. But under Language I only have one choice of English, namely just “English”. There’s no “English (UK)” option. (On the other hand, I have four different versions of Deutsch to choose from).

Possibly related, I noticed that the options under Date & time -> Date format include “Regional (12/31/2017)” which is also US format. So my phone thinks my regional date setting is US format, and because I can’t change the Language to a different kind of English I don’t seem to be able to change that.

My settings include the following, but they don’t affect the display in the call history, or the “Regional” option for Date format:
Automatic date & time: Use network-provided time
Automatic time zone: Use network provided time zone
Date format: 2017/12/31
Google spell checker - language: English (United Kingdom)
Google keyboard - input language: English (UK)

i.e. I’ve set everything I can to UK, but it seems the one thing I can’t change is Language.

Do I need to install some new language pack for English (UK)? Is it simply not supported by the FP1? (It’s supposed to be supported by Android 4.2.2 as far as I can tell).

2

Mind, that I’m on the #kitkat alpha, but my settings look like this. What speaks against using the third or fourth option in that list?

Screenshot_2017-06-13-17-40-57.png540×960 54.6 KB

3

As I said in the OP, I already use the fourth option in the list:

Date format: 2017/12/31

But the Phone app seems to ignore that setting, and the call history displays MM/DD/YYYY

My guess is that the Phone app always uses the “Regional” setting dictated by the phone’s Language setting, not the date format one I’ve chosen. Or maybe it’s just hardcoded to always show US dates (which seems unlikely, but possible).

4

I understand now. From your first post it was a bit hard for me to find out what you were trying to achieve. :sweat_smile: Thank you for the screenshots!

It works as expected for me (but as said before, I’m running #kitkat). If you don’t want to run the alpha version of #kitkat, you’ll have to wait until the stable release, I’m afraid.

5

So on your phone the call history uses the chosen Date format from the settings? That’s good to know. Although I’m not sure if the stable release will be available before my FP2 ships :slight_smile:

6

How could you dare to order a FP2 when your FP1 is still perfectly in order!? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Yes, the chosen date format is displayed correctly in the call history. :slight_smile:

7

Ha! It wasn’t in perfect working order, sadly. The USB port is faulty and only works if the cable is held at an angle, and both my batteries are knackered. I’ve got the FP2 now, and am mostly happy with it. Marshmallow doesn’t even allow changing the date format, so hopefully everything will use the appropriate settings for the chosen language.

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