I am not sure if this was intentional or not so I am filing a bug for it as it could also maybe used for evil. The Contacts app handles a "new" activity. But, when you pass this activity an "id" parameter and an "extra" object, it becomes an "edit" activity. If this is something that is just used internally then I think something should be in place to make sure third party apps don't use this. If it is a public API then I would suggest to move it to an "edit" activity instead.

You are right, that was made by design.