Kiosk Mode in Android

Kiosk mode in Android

You can autostart applications on boot by listening to the android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED intent in a BroadcastReceiver and start your Activity from there. In the Activity you can register yourself as the new default homescreen[1] and handle the keys.

I think there are some instances that you can't handle without modifying the framework (like longpress on Home to show currently active Applications) - I could also be mistaken though.

But for a prototype that could be sufficient.

Have fun tinkering!

[1]:

<intent-filter>
 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
 <category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME" />
 <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>

Android Kiosk Mode - Allow Exit

You have multiple HOME screens installed (the default one provided by the device manufacturer, and your app). The user must have chosen that your app should be the default HOME screen (this usually happens at boot time). What you now want to do is to remove this "preferred" setting so that the user can choose a different "default" HOME screen (ie: the manufacturer's app). Do that like this:

PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
pm.clearPackagePreferredActivities ("your.package.name");

and then finish() your MainActivity.

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EDIT: Alternative solution

As an alternative solution, when you want to "exit" your app, you just launch the default HOME screen instead. To do this, you need to either know the package and class name of the default HOME screen and hardcode that, or you can scan for that info using PackageManager like this:

PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
Intent homeIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
homeIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_HOME);
List<ResolveInfo> infoList = pm.queryIntentActivities(homeIntent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);
// Scan the list to find the first match that isn't my own app
for (ResolveInfo info : infoList) {
    if (!"my.package.name".equals(info.activityInfo.packageName)) {
        // This is the first match that isn't my package, so copy the
        //  package and class names into to the HOME Intent
        homeIntent.setClassName(info.activityInfo.packageName,
                       info.activityInfo.name);
        break;
    }
}
// Launch the default HOME screen
startActivity(homeIntent);
finish();

In this case, your app is still set as the default HOME screen, so if the user presses the HOME key again, your app will be started. But the user can then "exit" your app to return again to the original HOME screen.

Update Managed Google Play app that is in KIOSK mode

1.
I may be wrong but I had the same problem and it got fixed after I manually updated the app. So in my case I added "appAutoUpdatePolicy": "ALWAYS", AFTER I made the update, which ended up in my dedicated device not updating my Kiosk App. If you reinstall or manually update your app and then publish any new update AFTER you made the change to your policy, it should work.

2.

I understand that when apps are in Kiosk mode, they cannot simply be updated and that you have to set a time interval where the app is allowed to exit KIOSK mode and update itself. But even though I set the time interval in the policy, it does not update. Even tried to allow the time interval to be the whole day.

If you are refering to:

  "systemUpdate":
    {
      "type": "WINDOWED",
      "startMinutes": 0,
      "endMinutes": 1439
    }

Afaik this is about android system updates and not your Kiosk App.

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