What is (s/g)etFreezesText in TextView?

If you want to force your TextView (or EditText etc. for that matter) to save its state you must add freezesText attribute:

<TextView 
     ... 
     android:freezesText="true" />

From documentation on freezesText :

If set, the text view will include its current complete text inside of its frozen icicle in addition to meta-data such as the current cursor position. By default this is disabled; it can be useful when the contents of a text view is not stored in a persistent place such as a content provider

The attribute and method have existed since API 1, so I'll say you just noticed it.