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Android UI guidelines http://developer.android.com/design/downloads/index.html provide a back button image download but the button appears to be a bit different from the one used in the action bar. The stencil for the action bar "back/up" is not available in the Android stencils. Does anyone know if there is standard "back/up" button resource or each app is responsible for creating it's own (opens door for less consistency)? Or does the back button comes automatically with action bar?

enter image description here

enter image description here

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FYI, it's not "back/up", it's just Up. – Roman Nurik Jun 25 '12 at 20:17
Icon/Symbol questions are generally off-topic, per the FAQ. – Myrddin Emrys Jun 25 '12 at 21:19

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The SDK contains an icon called "ic_ab_back_holo_light.png" which looks the same as the icon from the design guidelines:

enter image description here

Located in ...android-sdk\platforms\android-14\data\res\drawable-xhdpi

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And the filename is a misnomer, the affordance is known as Up, and it is behaviorally different from the system BACK button. – Roman Nurik Jun 25 '12 at 20:17
Thank you Karen and Roman! – Anna Rouben Jun 25 '12 at 20:24
@RomanNurik files like this often get internal names before formal names are introduced, probably what happened here. Though they should have known better from the start; there's already a Back button on every android phone of course. – Ben Brocka♦ Jun 25 '12 at 20:32
@BenBrocka, yep exactly! – Roman Nurik Jun 25 '12 at 21:33

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