Research 114 Kiosk Mode Android application

Silo approach

A Kiosk Mode is implemented by disabling various Android features that can be used to leave your app. The following features are affected:

• The back button
• The home button
• The recent apps button
• The power button
• The volume buttons

Disadvantage: There are the long list of (very) dirty hacks

Ref: http://www.andreas-schrade.de/2015/02/16/android-tutorial-how-to-create-a-kiosk-mode-in-android/

Example source: https://github.com/andreasschrade/android-kiosk-mode

Screen spinning or Task locking ("Kiosk Mode" in Android Lollipop and Marshmallow)

• Starting Kiosk Mode: just call startLockTask() in your Activity -> low-security Kiosk Mode, user can easily break-out by holding the Back and Overview keys simultaneously.
• Install a “device owner” app. The device owner is a new, special kind of device administrator that can grant any app the right to put itself into a Kiosk Mode that the user can’t get out of. -> high-security Kiosk Mode

Ref:

• https://sdgsystems.com/blog/implementing-kiosk-mode-android-part-3-android-lollipop
• https://developer.android.com/work/cosu.html
• https://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-5.0.html#DeviceOwner

Source code:

• Set device owner app
• Kiosk Mode demo app