I want to create an system application(while installing it will ask user permission to make it as system app) for UN-rooted application. As I am not familiar in android, please tell me how to create it.
Thanks in advance.
True system apps are baked into the ROM image, and signed with the same key the ROM was signed with, giving them extra access to the system.
You cannot add a new system app on the same level without updating the ROM image of the device, and even then you'll need the OEM key to sign your app and you will have to request them to include it in their ROM.
Having a rooted device allows standard apps to gain extra access without being system apps.
Related
Is there any way to make Android app Un-installable prgramatically without root my phone?
No, its not possible to create an android app that cannot be un-installed.
Only some system apps that cannot be un-installed. Even they can be un-installed once your phone is rooted.
It creates security risk. A malware could become impossible to remove if once it installed. So no operating system will allow any developer to create this kind of application.
But you can hide the uninstall option.
You need to gain Device administrator access to your application.
Check this Documentation for further information.
Note: App can uninstalled via safe mode.
I'm developing a remote-control application for Android.
I want to be able to lock/unlock the screen.
To do this there are two ways:
Making the app a Device Administrator.
Using PowerManager.goToSleep(), which requires the DEVICE_POWER permission, which is a system permission.
So eclipse tells me "this permission is only granted to system apps".
I really need this and some other system permissions in my app, as it's a remote control app that must be able to control system features.
From the support page:
Uploading System Applications
Most developers will not need to upload system applications and may ignore this section. System applications may come pre-installed on certain devices and may or may not already be published in the Play store.
If you need to upload a system application and encounter an error message when doing so, please contact us. Please be sure to select the Publishing issues and distribution option.
If I'm understanding it right, It's possible to make a system application. how?
I'm developing a remote-control application for Android
Fortunately, this is not possible, except perhaps if you run as root, or you download the Android source code, modify it, and roll it into your own ROM mod.
If I'm understanding it right, It's possible to make a system application. how?
Build your own ROM mod. Sign the app with the same signing key as is used to sign your ROM mod. Put your app in your ROM mod. Install your ROM mod on your device.
This, of course, will limit your app's distribution to those devices running your ROM mod.
A lot of “system” permissions are really SIGNATURE_OR_SYSTEM permissions. For those, you need to do one of the following:
After building the APK, install it as a system app.
Sign the app with the same key as the Android distribution on your device.
For the first option, you would need to be root on your device. Regular APKs reside in /data/app, while system APKs need to be placed in a different folder (on Android 6 and 7 it’s /system/priv-app, earlier versions may differ). However, this is not very suitable for an app to be distributed to end users, especially if your target audience is not very tech-savvy.
For the second option, you need to build Android from source for your target device. If you sign the app with the same key as your Android build, then users running that build of Android can install it in the usual manner.
I am developing a customer care android application. The client want that only the customer care application should be installed in the Android phone and we should prevent installation of other application. Is there any hack we can do to do that?
Is there any hack we can do to do that?
Fortunately, not from a standard SDK app -- the technical term for this would be "malware".
As the comments to your question indicate, you are welcome to root the device, remove the Google Play Store client (if it exists), and disable the ability to install from non-Play sources by adjusting the secure settings. However, I suspect that this will prevent you from updating your own app without rooting.
I want to allow user to install my app directly from my web-site, not through the Android market.
I'm working on a specific non-phone android device, which can't be connected to the Android market.
how can I accomplish such a thing ?
The device can download the APK files like a normal file. After that, the user can open it and gets prompted to install it by checking the apps permissions. This required the unknown source preference (Preferences->Applications->Development usually) to be checked.
If you want to create some sort of drive-by-download/install: Thats not possible for (obvious) security reasons.
Can somebody explain to me what are the benefits of Android System App over a "normal" app
(besides that fact that a system app cannot be uninstalled)?
Special permissions?
There is some confusion here.
First, if you are talking about "system app" as just being one with FLAG_SYSTEM set, all this means is that the app is located on the /system partition, which is the read-only partition that is basically the firmware of the device. (It can only be modified as part of an OTA firmware update.) These apps can't be removed simply because they are on a partition that can't be modified.
The only thing special about a system application beyond this is that there are a handful of signature permissions that can also be granted to any app on the system image. For example there is a permission to directly talk with the package manager to install an app (without going through the system UI) that such an app can have; this is useful for any app store / market pre-loaded on a device.
Being signed with the platform certificate is an orthogonal concept -- such an app can be either on the system image or installed as a third party app (though obviously in almost all cases these come pre-installed). Such apps have access to a whole suite of low-level permissions for interacting with the platform. Very few apps are signed with this certificate; it is only for core platform applications. Unless you are working with a hardware vendor on a device, you won't have access to this.
All of the platform's certificates (whether they be available to all apps, require an app be signed with the platform cert, or are available to apps installed on the system partition) are declared by the platforms manifest, just like any other app:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/core/res/AndroidManifest.xml
There are permissions that can only be obtained by systems apps. For example the permission brick can be requested by every app but it is only granted to apps that are signed as system apps. There are some other features that make more sense I think directly installing and removing apps would be a system only permission too.
From your explanation I guess you mean the the pre-installed applications (like the Browser or the Messages app). You can take a look in these apps at https://android.googlesource.com. (search for platform/packages/apps/...).
You will find that these application are no difference to your own custom developed Apps, except you can't remove them. They cannot be removed as they provide the basic functionality to operate your phone / device. So, same security constraints apply there.