ISO: Free single app mode for Fire or Android

[skyguy918]

Anyone know if there's a free way to turn an old phone (android) or tablet (fire) into a single app device? Want to get to the point where I can comfortably hand my 10yo the device with a chess training app on it and know they can't get into anything else on the device at all. TIA

[TzviR]

Anyone know if there's a free way to turn an old phone (android) or tablet (fire) into a single app device? Want to get to the point where I can comfortably hand my 10yo the device with a chess training app on it and know they can't get into anything else on the device at all. TIA

I don't have any specific apps to recommend but I will stress that NO filter or block is 100% secure. Some are definitely better than others.

[lcm]

Anyone know if there's a free way to turn an old phone (android) or tablet (fire) into a single app device? Want to get to the point where I can comfortably hand my 10yo the device with a chess training app on it and know they can't get into anything else on the device at all. TIA

The closest out of the box is app pinning

[skyguy918]

I don't have any specific apps to recommend but I will stress that NO filter or block is 100% secure. Some are definitely better than others.

First of all, I'm not talking about handing it over on a permanent basis, with unfettered and private access. I mean more like handing it over for sessions, which gives relatively little opportunity to mess around. I would imagine that there are in fact kiosk apps (not necessarily free) that are basically foolproof without actually knowing admin login info or having access to a computer to hook up the phone/tablet to - and in those scenarios it'd be pretty obvious that it had been tampered with anyway. CMIIW.

The closest out of the box is app pinning

Definitely an option, but not ideal because I'd have to go and set it up each time. When I looked into this a while back, Fire OS didn't have that (and it's my tablets that are Fire OS, which would work better for this than a phone), but it seems like they might have added it.

[myi]

Gentech, or what they call kosher cell has an app which blocks everything but the selected apps. They use it for the waze devices, they charge $150 for one time setup.
 In essence download a 3rd party app to block all apps or select few apps. And restrict access to other stuff.

[skyguy918]

Gentech, or what they call kosher cell has an app which blocks everything but the selected apps. They use it for the waze devices, they charge $150 for one time setup.
 In essence download a 3rd party app to block all apps or select few apps. And restrict access to other stuff.

At that price I just wouldn't bother with the whole idea at all. What I ended up doing so far is just using old fire tablets and only letting them use it fully supervised for short periods of time. I did install Fully Kiosk on one of them, and it sort of works, but not well enough for my liking (without paying for an upgrade that I'm not 100% sure will work on Fire OS anyway). Seems pretty clear that I can accomplish what I'm trying to do with Android pretty easily, either through screen pinning or their enterprise kiosk mode, but I've yet to bite the bullet to buy and android tablet to try it.

[TzviR]

At that price I just wouldn't bother with the whole idea at all. What I ended up doing so far is just using old fire tablets and only letting them use it fully supervised for short periods of time. I did install Fully Kiosk on one of them, and it sort of works, but not well enough for my liking (without paying for an upgrade that I'm not 100% sure will work on Fire OS anyway). Seems pretty clear that I can accomplish what I'm trying to do with Android pretty easily, either through screen pinning or their enterprise kiosk mode, but I've yet to bite the bullet to buy and android tablet to try it.

You should be able to make a kids account with limited access on the fire

[skyguy918]

You should be able to make a kids account with limited access on the fire

Correct, but the chess app is not on the Amazon app store (I had to load in Google Play store first to download it), so as far as I can tell you can't make that app available in the kids profile.

[TzviR]

Yes that sounds right. I'm assuming you need a specific chess app? I can't imagine there are no chess apps on the amazon store.

[Bored Bachur]

Anyone know if there's a free way to turn an old phone (android) or tablet (fire) into a single app device? Want to get to the point where I can comfortably hand my 10yo the device with a chess training app on it and know they can't get into anything else on the device at all. TIA

I believe on a Kindle fire one of the parental controls is to turn off wifi settings, so if app doesn't require wifi this might be a decent way to filter, I'm by no means an expert on filters.

[Bored Bachur]

Correct, but the chess app is not on the Amazon app store (I had to load in Google Play store first to download it), so as far as I can tell you can't make that app available in the kids profile.

you can't download an APK of it directly?

[skyguy918]

I believe on a Kindle fire one of the parental controls is to turn off wifi settings, so if app doesn't require wifi this might be a decent way to filter, I'm by no means an expert on filters.

The app is Chess Kids, and it does require WiFi.

you can't download an APK of it directly?

I set up Google Play store and downloaded it through there, so I can use it on the tablet, just not in Kids mode.