How to reset android phone to original status by program?
or Can we use adb to trigger sth?
Many thanks for replying~
Apart from through the Device Administration API, you cannot simply invoke a call and completely factory reset a device, that I'm aware of.
There happens to be a android.permission.MASTER_CLEAR permission, but in order for the system to actually grant you that, your app will need to have 'signature' or 'signatureOrSystem' permissions, according to a Google Groups thread. The only way to get one of those is to sign the app against the same certificate as the system, which basically means you either have to work for a device manufacturer or compile and sign your own firmware.
I remember that on API8 (2.2) or later, through the DeviceAdmin API, you can perform a factory reset.
But this is extremely dangerous to the users, isn't it?
Related
Can I pair smartphone over Bluetooth without a need to confirm this in user interface, accept to pair this devices. I use android studio. I don't need to exchange data over them, I need just pairing without any action. And then safely pair with smartphone over Bluetooth without any user's action?
Yes and no, but you shouldn't anyway.
The only way to do this in Android is by using the BLUETOOTH_PRIVILEGED permission, which, as you can see, is only granted to apps in /system/priv-app/ or apps signed by the platform key of the device.
So unless you have root and can move your app to /system/priv-app/, you can't do what you want. Even if you can do this, however, don't. It's not a good user experience when someone installs an app, only for it to move itself to the system partition and start pairing without any notification.
We have our own rooted hardware device with android OS 7.0
We are building an app for that device. We have to restrict the users to performing some of the actions who will purchase that device. Here are the list of actions We want user to be restricted to perform on the device through the app.
Stop installing/uninstalling any other apps from OS.
On/off wifi
Pair Bluetooth
Change wallpaper
Basic idea behind is to make an app which will be the system app and will restrict user from the things mentioned above.
Is this possible to make such app? Looking for help in any of the above tasks. Thanks
Shor answer: NO.
Here is why;
The Android operation System is based on permissions, and no app can restrict that actions even with the users' permission. The reason for this is because of the Android App Layer that provides all the capabilities you described above.
The only way you can do such thing is to Customize the ROM of the CellPhone. In this case, you can override the functions that allow the user to use such services.
I need to Turn ON/OFF Mobile data programmatically. For this issue I need to use MODIFY_PHONE_STATE permission.
As we know in latest Android versions it's not possible for non-rooted phones unless the app has system rights.
I know that exists some workaround how to sign the app as system app. But as I understand it's not possible to publish such app at the Play Store.
My question is the next - is it possible to get system rights officially? If it is possible which way I have to go to get them?
THe only way to get them is a rooted device, or to build the device image yourself. The idea of system permissions is that only apps which are trusted by the creator of the system (the OEM) can request them. You can also get them by rooting the device, because of how they're granted (its based on the directory the app is installed in, which can be accessed if you have root). But there is no way to do it without root or without creating your own OS image.
MODIFY_PHONE_STATE is a system-only permission so there's no way to get that permission unless you root your phone.
I've just found an app that allows to disable Samsung apps without root, and in the background:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.packagedisabler
And also this free one:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ospolice.packagedisabler
How could this be? It doesn't even show a system-type alertDialog to ask the user if it's ok to disable the app. Did they find a flaw that allows doing so?
Is it only for Some Samsung apps? What about other apps and other companies? Is is possible there too?
Could the same mechanism be used for other operations? Like enabling apps?
I currently don't have a Samsung device, so I can't even check this app.
You can hide or unhide the apps provided you make your app as device owner with the api setApplicationHidden of DevicePolicyManager
Your app needs to be the device owner of the device. In order to become a device owner, you either need to do an NFC configuration or adb command shell. You can find a very well written blog by Florent here.
However, there is a new method of getting your application to become a device owner starting with Android Marshmallow. With a lot of limitations though. You have to be an EMM provider and your client has to have a google business or edu licensing for this to work.
There is no application on the google play store that allows your app to become device admin. As a device owner you have a lot of things you can control on the device and hence, I believe Google may not want to provide this kind of control without proper safeguards.
With regards to Samsung Devices, they provide their knox sdk as mentioned with other answers here which gives you access to certain APIs that are not allowed via stock Android.
As part of my app can contain PII, i would like to verify that the device is utilizing Device level encryption. Is this something I can check through my app? I've not seen a good way of knowing (and i know the point is that the software is unaware)
You can call getStorageEncryptionStatus() on DevicePolicyManager. It is possible that you need to actually be a device admin to do this, but I think anyone can call this method.