Guys, I'm looking for pointers on how to create a full screen app for android that starts at boot and takes over the display.
As background, we design and build phones, phone systems and stuff (illustrious I know), in our move toward a video device (voip) the build cost for the volumes we produce (typically 1k per year) would kill us. As such we are looking for a base on which to do the app thing and android looks the part for this.
We essentially want to take over the device and use it as a dedicated video phone interface. The reason we want dedicated is that the average user in our domain is thicker than a brick and proud of it, presenting these people with choice is a recipe for disaster hence the single full screen no close no switch out anything type app. The app part is easy the full screen lockout thing is the issue, so as said any pointers would be appreciated.
Related
Unfortunly I have recently lost one of my beloved gadgets, and after that situation I came up with this idea. I presents you an anti-thef system. I don't have the technical skills to develop it, neither I have the time, that's why I decided to post it here and if you consider this idea viable, may some of you want to involve in this tiny project with me
The idea:
Motivations: Most people don’t think about recovering their gadgets until they lose them. There are plenty of applications in Google Play dedicated to this purpose, however they are useless in most of the circumstances, specially if we attend to the fact that except in some exceptions, these apps don’t survive a factory reset
Idea: I propose to develop a system with wide acceptance among developers which in a transparent way for users allows them to gather information if their gadgets have been lost. This system would activate after downloading an application using this technology. This application would gather information about the gadget (permanent data such serial number of IMEI and volatile data such email address or phone number) and send it to a database usable only by the gadget's owner
Design: The system would have two parts:
An API - This API must be extremely simple and it could be integrated in all the applications in Google Play without efforts. The more wide accepted it is, the more effective the system will be. That’s why in my opinion this should be developed by a community like this in order to achieve a great acceptance quickly
The code will run the first time the application is executed. In that moment it gathers all the required information and it is sent to the database
A Web Service - The web service basically is a data base with two user interfaces - One interface designed to receive the data sent by the application - and another interface designed to return the information of a given gadget identified by its serial number. I have been wondering how to verified the ownership of an user, and I there are several ways, however it's an open discussion subject
Advantages of the system:
It’s totally transparent for the user
It’s a reset-proofing system, because as soon as the “new user” downloads a “marked” application, the database will receive helpful information in order to get the gadget returned to the real owner
It has more chances than the traditional applications to have the “thief” triggering events which runs the code
With a minimum cost we can offer something new to the market
Let’s see an example
A nice guy with a new gadget (let’s say a new phone), he downloads some applications, most of them marked with this system. In this situation the database collect the information of this new phone and indexes it using its serial number.
Few days later this nice guy forget his phone in a plane and the person who finds it forces a factory reset. As soon as the phone downloads one application the database stores the new information. Five minutes later our nice guy connects to the web site and discovers the name and the phone number of the person using his phone. They get in touch and the phone is returned to our nice guy
pls take a look @ ceberusapp.com . hope this is what u looking for.
Sent from my GT-I8150 using xda app-developers app
just add an app to /system which want the user to insert a code every 10 minutes when screen is on. after 3 wrong tries device will make wuiuiiiui and run away, hum?
Example: Chuck Norris have a new Phone. He Never Loose it. End.
Example 2: Justin Bieber have a new Phone. He loose it. Haters Destroy it and don't download applications. End.
Example 3: Jader132245324239 has got Xperia arc S and loose it. Jader13254 Find it and reflash Software and remove SIM. Jader1322u45324u239 will not Find it. End.
What Do You Think About?? If The User Wipe the Device & Reflash Software + Removed SIM, there would be no way to remember the Owner..
Cerberus is nice, in fact I use Cerberus on my mobile phone, however it has the problem I mentioned, it depends on the user to install it, and most users won't install anything because they don't even think in losing its mobile.
The system I proposed doesn't depend on the user, it automatically gathers the permanent information (for instance the serial number) and sends it to a database.
The main advantage of this system is that the thief, even after wiping the telephone, will probably download an application and then database will have information about this person.
What do you think?
Not a development thread - moved to General.
tl;dr I'm new, I'm not a very knowledgeable developer, I have an idea that I want your opinion about.
Heyo Peoples,
I'm new and I like to think a lot about cool new stuff with mobile devices (web, software, hardware, etc). I've been thinking a lot recently about how people like to use mobile devices, and how we might use them in the near future--thinking past what's being done now, and into what comes next.
I've been wondering for a while why there isn't an existing piece of functionality on mobile devices that allows a user complete control of the device and every piece of information on it. Imagine a GUI except instead of graphics, it's like interacting with a person. (aside: first person to say Siri should be shunned like an Amish girl who went to a movie theater).
Is it outrageous to say that you should be able to pick up your phone and have it find anything, from anytime in the past that you have done with or on it? I know that would take mountains of data, but is it silly? In it's most basic form, this would just be a search feature. In it's most eloquent form it could be an operating system. Imagine being able to ask your phone what you did last Wednesday, or maybe where you were. What if it could recall emails or documents based on date, time, location where you were when you wrote it, keyword, or contact, based on verbal interaction? What if it tracked data usage by application, or allowed you to measure and optimize system performance with a verbal command (ex. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" or "How much data am I using per minute").
Is it too early to start wishing for an interface like that computer on Paycheck (horrible movie with Ben Afleck) or Cortana in Halo? Is this type of interface impractical or implausible?
If you were to make something like this, would it have to be a new operating system built from the ground up, or could you develop an app to do this, or could you hack Android to do it? I welcome all of your feedback.
Lots of questions, and I have very few answers.
Jujubes said:
tl;dr I'm new, I'm not a very knowledgeable developer, I have an idea that I want your opinion about.
Heyo Peoples,
I'm new and I like to think a lot about cool new stuff with mobile devices (web, software, hardware, etc). I've been thinking a lot recently about how people like to use mobile devices, and how we might use them in the near future--thinking past what's being done now, and into what comes next.
I've been wondering for a while why there isn't an existing piece of functionality on mobile devices that allows a user complete control of the device and every piece of information on it. Imagine a GUI except instead of graphics, it's like interacting with a person. (aside: first person to say Siri should be shunned like an Amish girl who went to a movie theater).
Is it outrageous to say that you should be able to pick up your phone and have it find anything, from anytime in the past that you have done with or on it? I know that would take mountains of data, but is it silly? In it's most basic form, this would just be a search feature. In it's most eloquent form it could be an operating system. Imagine being able to ask your phone what you did last Wednesday, or maybe where you were. What if it could recall emails or documents based on date, time, location where you were when you wrote it, keyword, or contact, based on verbal interaction? What if it tracked data usage by application, or allowed you to measure and optimize system performance with a verbal command (ex. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" or "How much data am I using per minute").
Is it too early to start wishing for an interface like that computer on Paycheck (horrible movie with Ben Afleck) or Cortana in Halo? Is this type of interface impractical or implausible?
If you were to make something like this, would it have to be a new operating system built from the ground up, or could you develop an app to do this, or could you hack Android to do it? I welcome all of your feedback.
Lots of questions, and I have very few answers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is probably not as far off as it seems. The developers of "Utter" have come along way in the right direction. You should maybe approach them with your ideas. Not all of them of course . Save some for yourself.
One problem I see is semantics. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" sounds good - but do you really mean ALL apps ? The line that would be walked is one where the developer must train the program to not necessarily do what they ask, but do what they WANT. It gets trickier when you realise that some people who aren't your average users might want to test things and shut down an app (in this case) that an average user would never want shut, where they might mess up their phone beyond their ability to repair if they did.
I think speech is a great tool to interact, though I'm not going to be a person to use it. I don't think speech will ever become a default unless there are other technological advances that change how we interact with the world. It's annoying enough to hear someone gabbing loudly to another human on the phone, do we really want people gabbing AT their phones as a default interface ? I think privacy is a driving factor that will keep sound from being a major interface - perhaps it could work for in home applications, but out in public people may not want to announce to the world who they are calling, what they are looking for, or what site they're logging on to, et cetera. Until there's technology to make voice and sound less "public", I don't see this being the future of phones - it's more of a nice thing to have as an "extra" for when a person is comfortable using it.
But, hey, maybe we'll get used to wearing Google Glass and talking to ourselves all the time - or we'll get in-ear buds or implants where we can choose to hear the outside world or not. Just exploring the possibilities here.
I do think it's a big "outrageous" to have infinite backup. Just take a look at how much data companies like Amazon and Facebook acquire on a per-day basis. Think about how much data you use on a daily basis. I don't have the money or desire to be buying new HDDs every other week. Maybe in the future there will be a technological revolution that allows for mass amounts of data to be stored in even smaller spaces. But current technology in that regard is still very expensive and persnickety - read about high capacity SD cards and how fragile they can be and about data needing to be "refreshed" or they can become corrupt. There are lots of issues that make backing up everything you do impracticable.
And, again - privacy concerns. Do I really want my computer to know what I did last Wednesday and who I was with ? What if someone stole my computer or phone and had access to that information ? If we had the technology to do that, who's to say that current encryption would be "enough" - or that someone wouldn't go ahead and try to hack it anyway if they felt finding out basically everything about you was worth brute-forcing your phone or whatever they'd do in the future ? And have no password or a crappy one - even easier for them to know EVERYTHING about you, now.
Highly visual and talk-activated computers are absolutely great for games, movies, and TV. Why ? They function as narrative devices. They allow the actor to say or explain things they otherwise wouldn't have said out loud for personal, practical, or security reasons. They can become characters in their own right. People like those big screen computer displays where the characters are poking things all over and up and down - it looks cool. But not so cool is having your arms get tired from reaching up and around all the time. Not so cool is having to tell the computer out loud what kind of special images you want to search for when you have house-mates living in the next room over.
Just some thoughts. If you have other or counter ideas, go right on ahead.
Hello everyone! I am new to the forum. Been thinking of joining for a while but my current issue has been the push I needed to join. I have looked high and low for the answer but to be completely honest I am not entirely sure what to look for. Not sure what my question is. I have also looked around this forum for a a good little while stopping on this thread to ask my question. I hope it's the right place to start. I will try to ask this in a way that is understandable and relevant. In your answer please take into consideration that I am new-ish to Android Development. =) (I can do the basics, Root, hack, crack, etc,.) I know enough though I think to follow your answerer and understand it.
** Question: For my Project should I go with a full Android App, go with a website that can be viewed on a mobile phone, or should I build the back-end on a web server and have an android app that delivers the front-end? (Front-end being the login, the styling of the pages, where the interaction between users take place, etc,. ) I'll elaborate on my question below. **
Alright. I started building a website. Conceptual anyway. I have been designing it on paper, white board, Photoshop etc,. The website is going to be a social site of sorts. Unique in it's own way. At first I was going to do just a website. Then I realized as my creation grew that I wanted it to be an App. Then decided, due to all the back-end server programming and functionality required, I would most likely have to build it as a website or web application. To give a brief summery of the site. There will be a login system with profiles, instant messaging. video chats, group chats, ability to play simple games like cards, chess, and more. I will also need to be able to control sessions. Write new session information on the fly based on certain actions the users take.
My problem, I think, is that i'm not sure the most efficient or effective way to go about doing this. If it was going to be on a computer I would write it up in PHP and obviously display the site with HTML/CSS. The display part I think is where I am at a loss. At least one of my issues. Since I would like for this to be an app for Android I may need a new way to display the 'site' if that's what It will even be called once it's an app. If I'm going to shoot for it to be on mobile phones then I'm thinking I can get the cosmetics looking good as well as using it to my advantage. I prefer the 'app-like-interface' rather than scroll with mouse and click on the page as if it were a website. ( 'app-like-interface': I am referring to buttons, and menus, and a overall 'pretty' interface. touch screen etc,.)
So should I write it as a website in it's entirety and just display it as a mobile site?
Should I completely trash the idea of doing this for mobile phones?
Should I (if it's possible) write everything on the back-end with PHP but create an app with java to display the styling and build the interface?
Or should I do something else entirely that I've not mentioned?
My apologies if this question was a bit to long. Tried to be thorough. Thanks so much in advance as well. This answer is something I need before I can even consider continuing. Thanks!
Az Tek
I have a friend who owns a restaurant and he offers an astounding number of sushi and sashimi dishes. It's often difficult, with so many offerings, for a server to know the ingredients of each offering and it's also difficult for the customer when he or she wants to look at and determine which offering to choose.
The owner wants to purchase several tablets that can be used for information purposes by both the server and the customer. He wants to put 500 to 1000 pictures on the tablets, with the ability to add a descriptive text for each picture. If this can be achieved by use of the tablet alone that's fine, but each tablet will have to have the same information and he doesn't want to have to configure and at times update the pictures and text on each one individually, which would be time consuming to say the least. He also plans to place a larger monitor at the sushi bar that would display the same information, possibly on a continuous, automatic rotation. The restaurant uses Windows computers at several locations throughout the restaurant so if the information will have to be composed on one of his computers before transferring it to the tablets the tablets and app will have to be able to connect with and be compatible with the Windows OS. Needless to say, these tablets must be user friendly for the server and customer.
I would appreciate it very much if someone could let me know which tablet and app would be the best for doing this. I suppose he would want a small tablet that is easy to use by both the server and the customer. He wants each observed page on the tablet to display only one picture and one description to make it easy for all involved, similar to how a digital photo album displays only one picture at a time and he wants to be able to progress from one page to the next by swiping the page, tapping the page or using an arrow embedded in the picture. I need the recommendation on a tablet for ease of use with the app.
Thank you in advance for your time and any assistance provided.
C. B.
Please visit the following two threads and read there...http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2230428 and
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2229761
So it goes without saying that the two Fold phones released by Samsung are quite unique in the way the device has two screen resolutions and aspect ratio.
Whilst this is great for having one of two screens that is more suitable for different tasks (e.g. inner for content consumption like web browsing, watching video and reading ebooks), it does cause a bit of a headache in regards to apps dynamically changing depending on which screen you're using. For example:
As some has mentioned - launchers with two layouts, one for outer and inner screen
3rd party keyboards - The SwiftKey keyboard that comes installed tries to keep the split thumb keyboard on the front screen. Unlike the stock Samsung keyboard
Do you think there will be much desire for application developers to make specific changes to their apps for this device? Two issues I see is the high cost of this device stopping developers from buying one to develop with and/or the high cost stopping this device taking enough share of the market for developers to want to accommodate.
I'm sure more devs will get on the train over time but it's just the beginning not much should really be expected right now tbh. There are just so many android phones to develop for.
Unlikely. Only niche developers with a specific interest in tablets & foldables will probably do it. One of the largest issues is that in order to support foldables, you have to use the Android 10.0 SDK which would make their app unusable to a large portion of the user-base. On top of that, in terms of market share, there's a lot of tablet users, yet not a lot of apps are optimized to use that extra space. We'll likely see minimal support for it being mainstream in 3-4 years. Until then, we can just hope that apps become more tablet optimized I suppose.
Nova doesn't have any interest until google implements an API
The biggest thing that bothers me is not the terrible swipe animation on swift key, ? it is the lack of optimizations for the infinity o display. On the fold 2 when you rotate chrome into landscape you're stuck with a white bar on the side of the phone. Apps won't draw over over the hole punch. Full screen apps in settings won't fix it. Good lock won't fix it.
Happens with so many other apps. Happens on my s20+ so it's a problem app devs need to fix for all Samsung phones