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Activity Lifecyle Difference in Device's Back Button vs Actionbar's Back Button

I'm currently learning the Activity Lifecyle. I noticed the following:
I have two Activitys, A and B.
When I open Activity B from Activity A, A gets stopped and B gets created and started.
When I press the Back Button on my device, B gets destroyed and A get restarted.
But when I use the Back / Up Botton of the Actionbar instead, B gets destroyed, A gets destroyed and then onCreate() is called.
Why gets A destroyed instead of restarted, when using the Up Botton in the ActionBar?
I hope my question is clear, if not please comment.

When you press the BACK button, this calls onBackPressed() in the current Activity. The default behaviour of that method (if not overridden in the Activity) is to call finish() on the Activity. This finishes the Activity and resumes the Activity which is underneath it.
The UP button is calling startActivity() with an Intent that is built like this:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, TargetActivityForUpButton.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
This code will remove all activities in the stack back to, and including, TargetActivityForUpButton. It then creates a new instance of TargetActivityForUpButton and launches that Actvity (you will see onCreate(), onStart(), onResume() called on the Activity.
See also the section "Navigate up to parent activity" in https://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/ancestral

The device's back button is actually taking you back (to the previous activity). The action bar back button works similarly to an "Up" button (within the hierarchy of your app). This is why the action bar's back button won't take you outside of the app, whereas the device's back button will carry on taking you back, even outside of the app. The action bar exists within your app so it follows the activity's lifecycle methods and starts from scratch each time you go back, whereas the device is restarting from where it stopped.
EDIT:
The Back button appears in the system navigation bar and is used to navigate, in reverse chronological order, through the history of screens the user has recently worked with. It is generally based on the temporal relationships between screens, rather than the app's hierarchy.
(Read more here)

Android phone built-in back button

I have an activity with two fragments, each fragment has a back button to the previous activity/fragment. Both the back buttons on the fragments work properly. However when i run the app on my android phone and i use the built-in back button to navigate to the previous activity, it displays a blank activity and then when i press the built-in back button again only then does it navigate to the previous activity. The problem is clearly the back burton than built in.Is there a way to solve this???

There is a method in the Activity called onBackPressed() which is called when the device back button is pressed. If you want to control what happens on back press just override it. To remove default onBackPressed action you need to remove the call to super.onBackPressed() and then you control what happens when back button is pressed.
#Override
public void onBackPressed() {
//super.onBackPressed();
// do something here
// or perhaps nothing at all
}

back button's function on first activity

Normally when the back button is clicked it goes to the previous activity and if the current activity is the first activity, the application closes.
I have a splash screen (that is logically my first activity) and then the menu activity loads.
I want to close the program when the back button is pressed on my menu activity (as if it is the first activity) and avoid going back to the splash screen again, but I know that I should not exit the program.
I was wondering what is the functionality of back button on the first activity?
does it put the program to pause?

Avoid splash screens !
Instead of using your splash as the main activity, use menu activity as the main one, and in onCreate() chain off the splash activity, which will close and disappear forever.

When new Activity is launched from first Activity, first Activity is executed until onStop() method, then it stops and waits for relaunch, unless you killed it by calling .finish(), in that case launched Activity becomes first Activity and back button will minimize application on back button press. In order to control what application does on back button press you can override this method in your Activities and implement your own custom behaviour:
#Override
public void onBackPressed() {
super.onBackPressed()
}
Very good example of how lifecycle of Fragments/Activities work can be seen in picture below:
Hope this helps. Good luck.

While you are on the SplashScreen, on the method calling your menu activity I assume you are doing something like startActivity (new Intent (this, MenuActivity.class)); in Java or startActivity(Intent(this, MenuActivity::class.java)) for Kotlin just after that call finish() this will remove your SplashScreen from the back stack

add this attribute to your splash activity (in manifest):
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
pressing back in per activity, transfer control to prev activity in stack (back stack) that not excluded from "Recents".

Android back pressed without refresh activity

I have 2 activities which one activity leads to the other activity.
The first activity present a listview and the items click leads to the second activity.
When I click the back button I get back to the first activity but the list reload and scroll up to the first item. I want the list to stay at its place after I get back to it.

If you call finish() in activity A when openig the new Activity B on back press you will call onCreate() of activity A to avoid this avoid calling finish() in activity A in your onItemClickListner()of activity A and record tge position of tge click in Activity A, in which case calling the back press in Activity B will cll for tge onResume() in activity A where in you could call For a direct scroll:
getListView().setSelection(<position>);
Or For a smooth scroll:
getListView().smoothScrollToPosition(<position>);

when you press back you call oncreate() on that activity so everything reload
you could use :
getListView().smoothScrollToPosition(yourpostion);
and think about using fragments for another way around it .
and recyclerview is advised .

If you don't call finish() on Activity A, even if you go to Activity B and come back, Activity A should not call the whole onCreate() again.
If you take a look at the life cycle of Activities, it will put Activity A in onPause() and probably onStop() depending on what you are doing on Activity B and how you defined launchMode in AndroidManifest.xml.
So when you are calling startActivity(..), don't call finish(). Otherwise it will load everything again to draw the Activity A.
Another possible way is using
#Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
..
}
OR you can use SharedPreference.
Once fetching data from Parse.com is over (like onPostExecute() of AsyncTask), you can read the data passed from Activity B to relocate the user to the list where they were.
EDIT:
Read this article about how to "come back" to the activity you were in, too.

How do I return to a calling activity if the user presses BACK?

My MAIN activity is spawning a child activity that contains a ListView. While this ListView is being populated (through an AsyncTask), an indeterminate progress bar is shown.
However, assuming that I am an impatient user and I press the BACK button, the progress bar is cancelled but I am left with a blank screen. I have to press BACK one more time to go back to the MAIN activity.
I would like the app to go back directly to the MAIN activity by pressing BACK only once. Can somebody point me in the right direction? I am thinking I should call finish() somewhere but I don't know where to put it. Thanks in advance!

Use setOnCancelListener() on Dialog (which ProgressDialog extends).

you should override "onBackPressed()"
it will call when the activity has detected the user's press of the back key.
#override
public void onBackPressed(){
this.startActivity(this,MainActivity.class);
}
this code will call the MainActivity when emulator/ipphone back button pressed...

you can try like this,place this code in your activities oncreate block.
findViewById(R.id.back).setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
finish();
}
});