Develop Reference

How to Configuration Device as a Single Purpose Application Device?

I have seen this in action in places like hostels/hotels:
How can you lock/restrict/configure an android device to only use an application, while having the following or most of them?
After every boot open and lock to a specific application.
Restrict specific hardware buttons, if any. (power button or all)
Lock device to use specific applications.
Is there anything "out of the box" provided by the SDK when building your applications? And if there is something like that what is the API support for that and how low does it get, API level wise?
Do you configure your device in a specific way? Is ther a documented pipeline for that?
I would prefer something official from google rather than 3rd party applications that do that.

firet it will suport in or after android 5.0
second lock app on your device for that creaate activity for luncer startLockTask(){}

First of all Single Purpose application is supported after Android 5.0.
To lock the app on your device call a method startLockTask() in your onCreate of launcher activity.
For detailed decription see this doc.

android tablet - run specific app (web-app) strict

i want to take tablet (some cheap chinese one) and run specific app on it (actually it is web page, so i need browser).
for example, i need the tablet to run the browser on "http://cnn.com" and thats it.
disable all buttons and disable all the other functions.. (power on the device to the specific page).
how can i perform this? i tried to read about building specific ROM but it looks like it will not be easy, especially with cheap unknown tablets..
any ideas?
Thanks

Thank you NigelK.
i find some tutorials for kiosk app.
the best solution is to run service in parallel that check the app is in the foreground.
please find the following tutorial:
http://www.basic4ppc.com/android/forum/threads/android-kiosk-mode-tutorial.10839/

Restart the whole device from Android

Is there any way to restart a device per code from within android. I can highly customize all software on the device (tablet). As Backgroundinfo: I want a timer that restarts the device after a defined count if he did not get reseted.
Edit:
If there there is no Buildin-Way is it possible to do this anyway?

In general Google dont allow third party apps to Reboot device below are few link might be helpful
http://groups.google.com/group/android-platform/browse_thread/thread/daf7c685e020d296
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/5a97467ef5b4bf47/a1fe9379d4f5e30f?pli=1

This isn't possible from within an app, I believe.
The intent for rebooting the device (ACTION_REBOOT, if I recall, but I'm happy to be corrected!) can only be called from the system itself, not from any software residing on it.
(See the Android reference docs here.)

How to boot android phone programmatically?

I want to reboot targeted phone by SMS. Is it possible? How can we implement this?

According to this Android Developers thread on Google Groups, third party applications don't have permission to reboot the device.

Your problem has two core parts. Can you reboot the phone programatically? Can you write a program to intercept incoming SMS? If you answered YES to both of your question, it is possible to do this.
I am not a Android developer but i think this should be quite possible.
take a look # Android SMS intercept without notification icon or WAP-PUSH messages and http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/sms-messaging-android
I think BroadcastReceiver is the one you are looking for.
I have no idea whether you can programatically reset the android phone using java... Someone else might answer you about that
EDIT: I guess according to the link Bill has posted, 3rd party applications are not permitted to do a reset

If you mean by having an app waiting for a specific text, then only on a rooted phone.
Ranhiru's link tells you how to get the text without it giving a text notification. If your phone isn't rooted, then programs don't have access to functions like that. If it's rooted, I can't say exactly how to do it, I haven't tried yet, but have a look for the source of apps like quickboot, a lot of them have it all publically available on code.google.com

For the record, it IS possible to intercept SMS messages on a stock Android phone - I've written a little app which pops up a Toast when I get a text rather than having to go in to the messages app.
It's NOT possible to perform a normal shutdown/reboot/??? without rooting the phone or being Google (at least, convinving the phone you're Google) but that would be a violation of the developer agreement.
In fact, you will find huge barriers in your way if you try to do anything to the OS or any other app - Which is usually a good thing

How to lock the Screen customly? Just like WaveSecure in Android

I want to do a demo just like WaveSecure, which win Android Develop Challenge 2 with a third place. Now I have a problem in locking the screen customly, so I want to know how WaveSecure achieve its locking function, as the following picture show:
When the mobile is locked, WaveSecure can require customer to input their own password. So I think WaveSecure must replace Android's original locking function.
And I also google it, but I didn't find anything helpful. I only find two packages may be helpful. They are:
android.app.KeyguardManager
android.os.PowerManager
But after I reading the Android Docs, I still can't have an idea on it.
Can you help me? Thx:)

I have been searching for an answer to the exact same question for a while. Apparently, after 2.0 onwards the device manager privileges for the app level were removed. But with Froyo - 2.2 the device policy manager is revealed granting us developers a multitude of administrative level controls.
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin.html