I am looking into mobile app development, and I had some questions about the android platform.
Does the android platform use a central settings and preferences page (much like the gears icon on an iOS device)?
I've been reading about services. Are these what I would use if I wanted to develop an application that doesn't have a UI (think something like the drop box client)?
In my reading about services I read that the android OS will kill your service when it thinks that it needs to reclaim resources. Is there a way to ensure a service wouldn't be killed?
How much control would I as a developer have over the physical hardware? Say if I wanted to make an app to block distractions, and to do this I would need to control the networking interfaces beyond purposely misconfiguring these interfaces to block their connection? Can I programmatically turn off these interfaces?
Each individual application has its own settings page, but this is generally created by using the built-in Android settings class (you can just subclass PreferenceActivity)
Every application must have an activity (A screen with a UI), but yes, you can do the majority of your work in a service, which is analogous to a background process on a desktop computer
There is no way to ensure that Android won't kill your service without rooting the phone. However,
"If the service is bound to an activity that has user focus, then it's
less likely to be killed, and if the service is declared to run in the
foreground (discussed later), then it will almost never be killed" link
Yes, you have access to any hardware (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G radios, camera, etc) through the Android API. You will have to request an install time permission from the user in order to deal with them, however. Also, other programs can turn them back on.
Related
I am developing an application for a business entity. That application should run in the background in every employees' mobile phone. Employees are mostly salesman. The application basically detects location changes and suggest the salesman where they might visit. A kind of reminder application. It also lets other salesmen see where are their teammates.
Right now I am using a foreground activity and it works fine till the system forcefully doesn't kill the service or the phone doesn't reboot due to manual activity or battery discharge.
Ones the application is closed, as of now, the managers in the firm needs to call salespeople to turn on the application once, as on application start it automatically turn on its foreground service. But this is really an extra burden on the management team which can be automated.
I am ok to have any settings based or code based solution. One solution is to root the phones of salespeople and install some extra utility app or write the code based on root APIs, but this will be too much for this simple task.
THe permission RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED was not added properly in the manifest. After adding the permission it worked calmly. In on receive method of the broadcast receiver, I am starting the foreground service.
At the moment, the best way is to use WorkManager https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/workmanager/ Yes, it still alpha, but works very good.
From other side, you could work on automating the task "managers in the firm needs to call salespeople to turn on the application once". I mean, an app/backend could automatically call the salesman (with some pre-recorded message) or send SMS to them.
I am working on an Android enterprise application that targets limited mobile devices which help owner to track the user/device status (like GPS, Calls logs) remotely. I managed to implement these basics features to my application. Challenge that I'm facing now is the end users who traveling away with the device can force stop the application or can revoke some permissions(above Marshmallow) to prevent them self from being tracked remotely by the owner.
First of all is it possible to make such an application?
If yes, what are APIs given for such applications development?
Note - All the targeted devices are rooted anything I can get advantage of that.
Is there are any special APIs available for developments of those applications which work only on Rooted devices?
According to your requirement i will suggest you to look deep into the android Service.
As You might also have a look on the persistent service,
You can only make your service persistent if you are developing system apps. This service is basically unkillable.
Here is some write up for persistent service
Hopefully this might help you.
But for non-system applications, startForeground is your best option.
There is an android application I am planning to write, that will be used as an "always on" application (kiosk-mode) used on Android tablets running restaurant menu. Today, I already have a rudimentary application, but it is not quite what might qualify as kiosk-mode, since sometimes users close the application.
I wanted to see if there is a way to monitor the application remotely (or on device itself) and automatically restart it, s.t. it comes the foreground application ?
Of course, I'd prefer to remotely monitor for some remote customer service. It is not exactly essential to view (in remote desktop / vnc sense), but gather information like application health (running in foreground or not), get it's logs etc. Now I understand that on an unrooted device an applications log is not visible to other applications. So I was wondering if I could design my application to create light logs or status information, in a non-standard way, that could be shared by my other monitoring application.
While I get a feel that I am reinventing the wheel, since requirements like these seem far-from-unique, but in my search haven't found much beyond the standard 'screen cast' / 'screen share' applications... most of which either don't work too well (especially without root), or need one to jump through hoops to get them working.
There are ways to monitor activities of your application. There are utilities available to help you keep logs of events carried out by the users of the application. Like getting statistical information. They are typically Mobile Analytics tools.
Check this for instance: https://mixpanel.com/
This for example can help to keep track of events fired by the application. You can even send mails and notification to the users. There are similar tools available. For instance Google Analytics for Mobile Apps
The other possibility is to use Google Cloud Messaging. I believe this is even more powerful, which may help us to control our application to some extent. You may find this of help: http://hmkcode.com/android-google-cloud-messaging-tutorial/
Before someone tells me this cannot be done, I have done plenty of research on why on process cannot interfere with one another and under what conditions this is possible. Our problem is that the Bluetooth support between devices is inconsistent and the solution on some devices is to stop the existing Bluetooth service and run a separate app (BlueFTP) which is then able to listen on the freed port and manage OPP communication.
android.permission.RESTART_PACKAGES permission plus ActivityManager.restartPackage() doesn't work as it simply restarts the offending package.
Process.killProcess does not work for the obvious reasons (read the API)
android.permission.KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES permission plus ActivityManager.killBackgroundProcesses() is ignored because (I believe as per the API) the Bluetooth app is not considered a background app and therefore not eligible to be killed.
Currently if a client is having an issue with a specific phone, we get them to go to the running apps and force stop the offending OPP Service before refreshing BlueFTP so that the port listener starts. The offending service has more than one possible name depending on the phone and Android version.
So. The process is currently manual but I was hoping there would be a way to achieve this via code mirroring the force stop option in settings. A lighter option could be to assist in opening the settings for that service rather than needing to explain to clients how to get there, but I'd prefer a complete solution if one is available.
Note that while our the dev phones have root access, the client phones will not.
You can use implicit intents for your services in other apps to close them. It wouldn't need extra permissions as well, unless your service enforces a permission for it's access.
Oh, I overlooked the fact that it's a third party app. In that case, you can't really do much. Sorry.
I would like to know if there is a way to lock (prevent) an application from starting.
And i also would like to know if there is a way to prevent a service(application) from starting at boot of the device
...i would like to know because i would like to create an anti-malware app.
I know this question is old, but for others stumbling over it:
Autostarts is an application that can disable apps from starting at boot time. It's the best I've found to do that (it isn't resident and doesn't kill processes like a task manager, it actually parses apk packages and reads registered actions and blocks the actions you tell it to). BUT it needs root and hasn't been updated for a while (december 2011). It works on Android 2.3 on which I tested it. Because it was discontinued, I don't know if it works on newer OS versions.
It's commercial now, but that's not the point, you need a peek at the source code.
If you search a bit, you'll be able to find the source code for an older version and see how it implements the blocking system.
I would be very interested in an application that could block certain services. NOT kill, but prevent them from starting in the first place. And the list is quite big: Facebook (OrcaService, MqttPushService, MediaUploadService, BackgroundDetectionService), Twitter, Maps (NetworkInitiatedService), Yahoo Mail Sync, etc. I don't use the features that the services provide, I even disabled some of them in the app interface where possible, but they still pop up and remain resident after exiting the application.
I would like to know if there is a way to lock (prevent) an application from starting.
Not in any supported fashion. Anything that does this is malware, and the techniques for doing it are security holes.
And i also would like to know if there is a way to prevent a service(application) from
starting at boot of the device
The user can boot their phone in safe mode (I forget the exact process, but it's something like holding down the HOME key while turning the phone on).