Where appears android:description label from your manifest?

Although it's not displayed anywhere I have seen by the Android OS, The application description can be obtained programmatically by using the following function

CharSequence android.content.pm.ApplicationInfo.loadDescription(PackageManager pm)

There are some 3rd party applications available in the Market that make this call, and display information about other individual applications.

This is an excellent question, and I likewise can find no answer.

The value for android:description does not seem to appear in app selection screens (for generic intents). There is no option in the app tray to view more details about the application. It does not show in the App Manager. The Android Market description is set through the Android Market website when someone publishes an app and does not seem to come from the app itself.

I thought that, like android:title, it may show only in certain themes. However, none of the themes that I see in http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/res/values/styles.html or http://developer.android.com/reference/android/R.style.html seem like they would include a description.

The only other possibility I can think of is that it was added "just in case" they wanted to use it in some app or version of Android later on... and that they never got around to it, making it useless for the time being. Unfortunately, we may never know, unless someone from the Android team itself talks.

Summary: as best as I can find, android:description does not show ANYWHERE.

Android documentation for android:description states

... a user-readable text about the application, longer and more descriptive than the application label. The value must be set as a reference to a string resource. Unlike the label, it cannot be a raw string. There is no default value.

This statement is very important if you carefully read it. Here's how I'd decipher it:

"..longer and more descriptive..." - Certainly, this means it's not meant for visual display. But rather, it suggests that it's to be used internally by an API.

.."no default value" - This suggests that each application will have a unique value

My best educated guess would be this tag acts as a meta-tag which could be used by Google internally to understand (?) what each app tries to do, or to give the Android Market engine more insight for better SEO experience.

In all cases, I'd NEVER leave that field blank just for the sake that it's not visible!