Permissions to run any app

Question

I am looking for possibility to run only:

• phone
• chrome
• camera
• music player

on Android device. I want to check app first before I decide to give permission to run it. I want to run Phone app but I want to block SMS app and all other messaging apps.

How can I set it up ?

The purpose is to give the smartfone to the kid but with very limited options, so it's not using messaging and other chat apps , the only way of communication is just phone call but also I want her to have a Web Browser and phone Contact list, Camera and some Music apps so she can use it as a player anytime.

No distracting apps loaded with ads, no texting, no notifications.

Please help with the simplest solution for that.

Thank you

Answer 1

You can use kiosk mode for that. The simplest way to set up kiosk-mode on Android is to use Google's Android Management API which works for any Android devices running Android 5.1 or above.

To lock the device on one app, or on multiple app, you define a kiosk policy like below, it will disable the navigation buttons (sample copied from Create a policy):

"applications": [
 {
   "packageName": "com.example.app",
   "installType": "FORCE_INSTALLED",
   "lockTaskAllowed": true,
   "defaultPermissionPolicy": "GRANT",
 },
"persistentPreferredActivities": [
  {
    "receiverActivity": "com.example.app/.com.example.app.MainActivity",
    "actions": [
      "android.intent.action.MAIN"
    ],
    "categories": [
      "android.intent.category.HOME",
      "android.intent.category.DEFAULT"
    ]
  }
]