getSystemService(MIDI_SERVICE) returns null

[peterdk]

I have a popular piano app (Mini Piano Lite) and I got a user now that could not connect his Bluetooth midi device.
After lots of debugging, it turns out the getSystemService(MIDI_SERVICE) returns null... But his device is a (ok, a pretty crappy Chinese brand) Android 14 tablet.

I haven't encountered that earlier, and was wondering if you know why this happens? Is this a expected situation? I was expecting the MidiManager to be only not available on very old Android versions?

Weird thing, is that another app can connect his bluetooth piano keyboard. I do use the legacy USB fallback library for wired connections, but I am a bit stumped here if that's also possible for bluetooth. (I am not sure if the gains are worth it versus the effort)

Do you have some insights into the Android MIDI ecosystem?

By the way, I normally use the companion route for bluetooth setup, that way you don't need any permissions like location. Works fine for me normally.

[peterdk]

I do have

<uses-feature android:name="android.software.midi" android:required="false"/>

in the manifest by the way.

[philburk]

Supporting MIDI is not required for Android phones and tablets. But it probably should be.

I am assigning these Issues to @robertwu1 because he is now in charge of Android MIDI.