Kiosk mode in Android

Question

I\'m in the process of evaluating if and how a CF .NET enterprise application can be ported to run on Android devices. The application on Windows Mobile phones are run in ki

Answer 1

Starting your app on boot

the BEST way to accomplish this is setting your app as the launcher

Locking your app

the most reliable way is to use a device with Lollipop or greater and make use of

startLockTask

first you must set your app as the device owner. NB your device must be unprovisioned: if you registered it you should do a factory reset and skip the account registration.

to be able to register your app you must first setup a DeviceAdminReceiver component:

package com.example.myapp;

public class MyDeviceAdminReceiver extends android.app.admin.DeviceAdminReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onEnabled(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Toast.makeText(context, "Device admin permission received", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence onDisableRequested(Context context, Intent intent) {
        return "are you sure?";
    }

    @Override
    public void onDisabled(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Toast.makeText(context, "Device admin permission revoked", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }


    @Override
    public void onLockTaskModeExiting(Context context, Intent intent) {
        // here you must re-lock your app. make your activity know of this event and make it call startLockTask again!
    }
}

once you have an unprovisioned device you can launch the following command from adb (no root required)

adb shell dpm set-device-owner com.example.myapp/.MyDeviceAdminReceiver

to avoid android asking the user permissions to pin your app you must call setLockTaskPackages

finally!

@Override
public void onResume(){
    super.onResume();
    DevicePolicyManager mDevicePolicyManager = (DevicePolicyManager) getSystemService(
            Context.DEVICE_POLICY_SERVICE);
    ComponentName mAdminComponentName = new ComponentName(getApplicationContext(), MyDeviceAdminReceiver.class);
    mDevicePolicyManager.setLockTaskPackages(mAdminComponentName, new String[]{getPackageName()});
    startLockTask();
}
@Override
public void finish(){
    stopLockTask();
    super.finish();
}