Edit: Changes in API level 23 and newer make impossible for normal application to modify the autorotate setting

The application presented in this blog uses the android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS that, starting from Android v6.0 Marshmallow (API level 23), requires the application to be system or signed to be able to run without user intervention.

There's a workaround that can be used targeting API level 22. In this way the application can still use the old permission model and it can write into the settings.

However, because Google already announced that from August 2018 new application will need to target API level 26 to be accepted into the Play Store, this is a short lived solution. It's only a viable solution if your application is never going to be included in the play store.

Anyway, I've updated the code on github with this change and uploaded a new apk here.

To handle correctly this permission in a normal application, user intervention is required.

The application should use the Settings.ACTION_MANAGE_WRITE_SETTINGS intent with something like:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.M) {
    if (!Settings.System.canWrite(getApplicationContext())) {
        Intent intent = new Intent(Settings.ACTION_MANAGE_WRITE_SETTINGS, Uri.parse("package:" + getPackageName()));
        startActivity(intent);
        bDoIt = false;
    }
}

You can read here a full description of the usecase for this application.

~Pietro