I'm running the latest stock Android 9 release for the 2019 Samsung Galaxy Tab A (SM-P205) but the same was true on older versions of Android and Minecraft. Alternative input controls and the settings for them are a horrible mess and have been forever.
I thought purchasing a game controller would help with not having usable mouse support but the game controller settings don't seem to have any effect. The A/B and X/Y buttons are swapped and the options to swap them in settings don't have any effect at all. I don't think the sensitivity settings are working either (targetting is slow no matter what) but I can't confirm that. It's basically just as unusable as mouse input if not more so which means I wasted my money on a bluetooth game controller for nothing.
The controller I'm using is a Nyko Mini Wireless Core Controller (87279-T83) and it operates fine with other games. Given the massive problems with all input methods and settings across different versions of Android, different Android device manufacturers and different versions of Minecraft, I'm fairly certain it's just part of long-standing issues with Minecraft and not a device or Android issue.
Thank you for your report!
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