"My suggestion would be to change it so that you have to double tap most actions in order to confirm selection, with the first tap showing the popup descriptions, and the second tap executing the action. Maybe with the first tap also highlighting what the game thinks you tapped on, would be helpful"
This is a genius idea. I suggested using tap and long taps, but this might be a lot easier to implement.
The content menu doesn't work on adroid, is not just you.
Also theres a way to inspect/see descriptions on android. You need to press the phone button and then the ❔ button. The game will enter a special mode in which whatever thing you tap, it will show you it's description (but you can't interact with anything in this mode, you need to disable to select things).
The gameplay and flow is a lot slower and tedious, but it's technically playable. I'm playing like a madman even with the flaws that the android version has.