Other apps gets the message before my application - android

In my application, after receiving a specific message i do some task. It works well but when some other sms applications like HookUp(in micromax) and go sms pro is installed in device, these application also gets the message. I have set highest priority to my application. I want to stop bypassing the sms to these application. Please help
Thanks in advance

I want to stop them But dont know how?
Ask the user to uninstall those apps.
My guess is that the tiebreaker for BroadcastReceivers registered at the same priority is installation order. That seems to be the behavior, based on described behavior in these StackOverflow questions. Hence, if these other apps were installed before yours, they will get the broadcasts first, and there is nothing that you can do about it.
If the user values your application enough, they will uninstall those other apps (which definitely gives you priority), perhaps reinstalling them later (which may give you priority).

Related

How to lock (other) apps with password?

I've seen some "app locking" solutions in the Google Play store and I was wondering how those apps work. I'd like to build something similar.
I realize that this might require some special permission or maybe request the app to be added as device administrator.
Is there some broadcast that is triggered just before an app is launched that I can intercept and do some action (e.g. launch an activity that will request the user to fill a password)? I've read some lengthy discussions how this is not a good idea and the only idea is to have a background service that will continuously poll the running processes and check for changes, but I think retrieving this list every second and checking it for chances is not good for the battery and I think other app locking apps out there must be using a different approch.
If possible, without the need for a rooted phone.

Disable sending texts on Android

I want to be able to have the user press a button in the app that disables sending texts. In my googling attempts, I've seen that it might be impossible. Does anyone know how to accomplish this? My thoughts are either to disable opening the texting app or just disable the send button in the texting app.
This is not truly disabling it, as other comments have pointed out. However... you could set up a service or some sort of polling period with an alarm. You can check if a SMS app (you'll have to gather SMS packages) is open in the foreground by its package name, and then launch some activity from your application, essentially blocking the SMS app.
Granted, this is horrible UX and is very hacky, but it could work for preventing the sending of SMS by preventing the user from actually using any SMS apps.
It's not possible, because "texting app" is a system application, which have no open API's for it's UI customization. All you can do - just create custom texting application and replace with a system one.
Even if one somehow found a way to disable the texting app, it does not account for the ContentProvider's that expose the SMS and MMS data to any app that asks for it nor the API's that allow any app that asks to do so to send SMS and MMS for you. This is why you can download alternative texting apps (and why hangouts recently turned into a combination sms/chatting app).
Sorry, but you're asking to do something that requires ripping out the guts of the OS, from what I understand.

How to start an Activity or Service before an App application is uninstalled by the User?

Why the same question again
This question has been asked around 100 times on SO. I am asking it again because all the answers say this is not possible but at least one of the app in Market is doing it NQ Mobile Security. I started a bounty of 100 points on the similar question but it did not get enough attention. If community does not accept I will remove the question.
What is the App doing
The app shows an activity when user tries to uninstall it
and does some processing before it is uninstalled
What is my Question
How to start an Activity or an IntentService before an application in uninstalled by the user who has earlier installed the app on her device?
As #CommonsWare said The techniques used by NQ Mobile Security have been reported to the Android Security group, and they are working on a fix to stop this behavior from occurring. and have raised a feature request with Google hopefully they may listen to it.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?can=2&q=33315&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars&id=33315
I think that you can track logcat, where all activities, events, intents are registered and and find when an Intent is sent to uninstall this app.
Then you could possibly perform an action, i.e. launch an Activity, but I am not sure for this step.
Hope this helps!
I don't know how it happen in NQ Mobile Security application,
But in general case I found it not possible (Or may be possible but I couldn't find the way),
Because,
When you register BroadcastReceiver for android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED in your own app and when the app is uninstalled, the registered BroadcastReceiver has been uninstalled before the app gets uninstalled,so its own uninstallation event won't be received by that BroadcastReceiver.
I know this is old but I want to provide this answer.
Listening on your own uninstall is pretty easy. You just need to use a binary which you execute and runs in background(with nohup command).
This binary can either listen on PACKAGE_REMOVED broadcast or you can regulary check if the file still exists in /data/app/ (these files are world readable, directory listing is disabled, but u know your own package name :) )
I dunno if the second solution can be done without draining battery.

(Android) Keep service running, even when app is stopped by force

I have created an app. Works great, but I want some same functionality as gmail uses:
When I receive a new email, I get a notification. I inspected my phone and saw no services or applications running that look like the gmail-app.
I have investigated the AlarmManager and services, but as soon as I stop the app both don't work anymore.
Could someone give me a hint how to accomplish this?
Thanks in advance
I inspected my phone and saw no services or applications running that look like the gmail-app.
Partly, that is because Gmail gets such notifications via broadcast Intents from the OS, via the subsystem we see as C2DM (which is why you do not see a process). Partly, that is because Gmail is part of the firmware and may get some extra benefits as a result, in terms of resisting the normal behaviors that befall an app that is force-stopped.
Could someone give me a hint how to accomplish this?
You can't. Particularly on Android 3.1+, if your app is force-stopped, it will not run again until the user manually runs one of your activities (e.g., from the launcher).

Application for Child Monitoring

I am starting an application for child monitoring. This would involve mainly the logging of the SMS messages sent and received and logging other activities that may be of interest to the parents. It will also be nice to have something like access control lists for these, too.
Now, as far as I know:
It is not possible to make an app "not uninstallable".
It is not possible to prompt for a password to uninstall an app.
It is not possible to assure that your app is "always" running even if it's getting killed with something like Task Killer, although I think you can respawn the application at given time intervals.
So, any ideas on how to overcome these problems?
There is no way to work around these problems directly without creating your own build of the Android OS. Android always assumes the current user is the owner of the phone and should always be allowed to do whatever they need to do.
It's easy to see why the functionality you need isn't available if you replace "child monitoring" with "malicious data logging" in your question; if Android allowed an app to prevent the user from removing it, it would clearly be open to abuse.
The only thing I can think to do is to have your keep a log of when it is running. This would allow a parent to seen when the app had been running when they viewed the log of the collected data. So if the child had disabled the app the parent would know, but they wouldn't know what had been missed. Although you'd had to be able differentiate between when the phone was switched off and when the app just wasn't running which might not be straightforward.
What you said is true.
Also remember that applications like Task Killer have some sort of blacklist/ignore list so re spawning your app might not make it work.
PS: Without a rooted phone, there is no way you can save your app from a geek kid :)
I was thinking about writing a similar app and considered the same exact scenario. "What if the kid uninstalls the app?"
The only solution I was able to come up with was to have the app periodically ping a server with the a unique ID. Affectively having the app "Check in" with the server a few times a day. Kind of like when prisoner goes on parole. The app is the prisoner and the server is the Parole officer :)
If the app misses a checkin you could treat this as a potential uninstall. However, this could be caused by a lack of network connectivity. I'm sure you could come up with some interesting ways to flag and treat missed checkins. Maybe you could have the app send an SMS checkin or something instead of over HTTP. Then you wouldn't have to depend on Network connectivity.
Once you figure out how to translate missed checkins to an uninstall, you could shoot out an email to the interested party (i.e. the kids parent).
With this option in place, the parent can then have a "Conversation" with their kid before giving them the phone. Something along the lines of:
- "This phone's got parental controls on it. Yes, you do have the ability to uninstall them. However, if you uninstall them I'll know about it and I'll take the phone away."
I think there's definitely a market for this. Need some type of web-interface/dashboard for that parents can log into for monitoring too.
Hope this helps & best of luck.
Cheers!

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