Support

Why doesn't the app detect my location?

By design. AWAS uses neither GPS nor any location permission: you pick your city, and the calculation starts from its coordinates. That is also what lets the app ask for no access to where you are.

How do I add a city that isn't in the list?

Create a custom place and enter its coordinates. North and east are positive, south and west negative: Paris is 48.8566 and 2.3522; Buenos Aires is -34.6037 and -58.3816.

Enter the elevation and the time zone as well: the time zone is not inferred from the coordinates; you choose it.

Which calculation method should I choose?

The one your mosque uses. Failing that, the one customary in your country, which the app offers when you add a place there. Differences between methods come mostly from the angles chosen for Fajr and Isha; the other times barely move from one method to the next. The Diyanet method is the exception: it adds the precautionary minutes the Diyanet publishes, moving Sunrise 7 minutes earlier, and Dhuhr 5, Asr 4 and Maghrib 7 minutes later.

The Hijri date differs from the one announced

Countries do not begin a month on the same day, and no calculation knows what a commission will announce. The date follows the rule chosen for the selected place, under Settings → Hijri calendar: Umm al-Qura, a forecast of the Moroccan or Algerian announcement, a sighting from the place itself, or the Istanbul 2016 calendar the Diyanet and the CFCM follow. Choose the one your mosque or your country's authority follows.

If the announcement still differs, move the date with the shift under the rules, one day earlier or later at a time, up to two days either way. It stays moved for that place. The announcement prevails.

Why does the home screen start at Maghrib?

Because it is showing the Hijri day, which begins at sunset: the Maghrib and the Isha of the evening that opens it, then Fajr to Asr, with the Hijri date leading the header. From Maghrib on, the screen shows the next Hijri day, as the Hijri calendar counts it.

The round Day button under the qibla circle switches between the Hijri day and the Gregorian day, from Fajr to Isha, whenever you like; the app asks once, at its first start, which one to show. The times are the same either way. After the day's last prayer, the countdown runs on to the first of the next: Maghrib after Asr in the Hijri day, the next Fajr after Isha in the Gregorian day.

Which school do the daily voluntary prayers follow?

The one you pick. The section shows the nawafil for a single school at a time, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i or Hanbali, and none is chosen for you: the first visit asks, and you can change it whenever you like, under Settings → School of voluntary prayers. The choice never alters the calculated prayer times.

The section reports what the schools hold; it does not rule between them, and it does not follow what you have prayed. Where a window closes at the moment you perform an obligatory prayer, the row says so, because a clock cannot know that moment.

Is the qibla given for where I am?

No: for the place selected in the app, since AWAS never reads your location. The notice above the compass names that place. To pray elsewhere, choose that place under Places; the direction and the distance follow it.

Why does the compass show no direction, or a warning?

Because it is not sure of it. A phone's magnetometer is misled by a magnet, metal or an electronic device close by: a magnetic case or stand, a computer, a speaker. AWAS compares the field it measures with the Earth's at your place, and a panel under the distance says what it found: a red panel withholds the direction until you move the phone away, an orange one asks you to move the phone in a figure of eight, and an amber one shows the direction with a warning that it is less precise there.

With the Stabilised method, the compass also waits a few seconds after the app opens, and until the gyroscope agrees with the magnetometer; turning the phone slowly helps, and Direct gives the direction at once.

Why are some times unavailable at high latitudes?

Because the corresponding astronomical event does not occur that day: at some latitudes and times of year, the sun never sinks far enough below the horizon to reach the Fajr or Isha angle.

The app then shows a dash for that prayer alone, with a line saying why, rather than an arbitrary value, and the day's other times and their alerts stay. A convention with a shallower angle will usually reach it. A time produced by convention is still a convention; better to choose that convention knowingly, with your mosque.

My alerts don't fire, or arrive late

The app's own settings answer this without guesswork. The Notifications section ends with a Notification permissions row that reads what Android allows at that moment and says which permission is missing and, once the adhan is chosen, whether the phone restricts the app in the background. Tapping it opens the system page that grants it.

If none arrive at all, the row reads Android is not allowing AWAS to post notifications. Tapping it opens the app's notification settings, where one switch turns them back on.

If AWAS has turned your prayer alerts off and said so, the row names what Android withholds, and it is most often the exact-alarm permission. Recent versions of Android do not grant it at installation, and without it an alert arrives at the system's next convenient wake-up rather than at the minute, so AWAS keeps no alert on without it: turning one on asks for it, opening the app with one already on asks again, and a refusal turns the alerts off rather than letting them arrive late. Tapping the row then opens Android's own Alarms & reminders screen on AWAS, where one switch grants it for good. Then turn the alerts back on.

If alerts that are on still arrive late, exclude the app from battery optimisation in the Android settings; turning an alert on offers that dialog by itself.

An alert can sound, vibrate, stay silent, or call the adhan in your own recording. The choice sits in the app's settings, under Notifications, beside the reminder before each prayer, which can be set to any whole minute from 1 to 30.

Can the app call the adhan?

Yes, in a recording of your own. AWAS ships none: under Settings → Notifications, once the adhan is the chosen style, choose one from your phone (an audio file you have, or one you made with its voice recorder), and a second one for Fajr if you like. Without a Fajr recording, Fajr is called with the other.

The app plays it to the end, at the volume set for alerts. A phone set to silent or vibrate stays quiet: the alert vibrates for two seconds in place of the sound, and Listen on it plays the recording with Stop, without opening the app. If the adhan stops early on your phone, the permissions row in the settings is the place to look: some phones end background work unless the app is allowed to run unrestricted, and the row asks for that when it is not.

If the alert shows only once you pull the shade down, without waking the screen or appearing on the lock screen, that is the phone's own notification settings for AWAS. On a Xiaomi they are under Settings → Notifications & status bar → App notifications → AWAS: turn on Lock screen notifications, and Floating notifications for a pop-up while the phone is in use.

My notes didn't follow me to my new phone

That is deliberate, not a fault. Your saved places, your preferences and any calculation methods you wrote are carried over by Android's own backup. Your notes are not: they are the one thing in the app whose contents you alone chose, so they are kept out of that backup and out of the direct phone-to-phone transfer, and stay on the device where you wrote them.

If you want to keep a note beyond the phone it lives on, copy it somewhere of your choosing before you change device.

Where can I read the licences of what the app bundles?

In the app, under Settings → About → Open source licences. Every open source component ships its licence text with it, including the two typefaces, whose licence requires exactly that. The one component that is not open source, Google Play's update library, comes under Google's own terms, and the privacy policy says what it does.

Does the app work without a connection?

Yes, entirely. The calculation, the Hijri date, the city list and the calendar times are all produced on the device. AWAS makes no network requests, and has no server to reach.

How do new versions arrive?

Through Google Play, which usually installs them by itself. When it has not yet, the app offers the new version in Google Play's own window when you open it, at most once every three days. It downloads while you go on using the app, and Restart, on the bar that follows, installs it. The app learns of a new version by asking the Google Play app on your phone; it makes no network request of its own.