Do you lock your Android device? If so,how tight is the security? There are plenty of reasons for locking a device,but no matter your reason it’s still a pain to unlock that way. Sure,it’s probably worth the trade-off. But if you had an easier way to protect your stuff,wouldn’t you use it? I was drawn to a recent post on the xda blog about App Lock,which allows you to protect specific apps rather than your entire device. That might make life a little easier for you.
With three modes of unlocking — numeric password,gestures,and swipes — you can protect any application on your device. In many ways this can work better than just protecting your device. This way you can enter in your key only when you go into a protected app,rather than every time you unlock the device. I’m not sure about everyone else,but I end up unlocking my phone dozens upon dozens of times per day. I’d much rather tie the password to specific apps than to the whole device. And that’s just the first advantage of the app.
Within the app’s main screen you can add and remove apps from the lock list easily. Don’t want people accessing your contacts,SMS,email,or other sensitive information? Just add ‘em to the list. You’ll have to gesture or enter a password each time you use them,but that might be worth the security trouble. Again,I unlock my device in general more often than I access my email.
What’s more,the app has two modes,visitor mode and master mode. In visitor mode the locks work as normal,but in master mode your device runs with no restrictions. This is helpful if you’re going to be using your device a lot all at once. It is,of course,unhelpful if you leave your device in master mode and then lose it,or otherwise forget to turn on visitor mode when you lend it to someone. There have been calls on the app thread for a notification bar toggle. This would be a wonderful addition,really bringing together the app.
As with many Android apps,there are paid and premium versions of this. You can download the App Lock APK from xda. That’s free and ad-supported. The full version,ad-free,is $1.99 in the Market.
This post originated at AndGeeks.com –home to all things Android! Also a great source of info about Android Phones.
App Lock keeps your stuff save from prying eyes