Customizing Mobile Device for a Single-Purpose – Kiosk

Until recently Kiosk was affordable to big enterprises only, where the projects begins with the question, like what is hardware requirements? The small store-owner or retailer cant even dream of using kiosk to support their customer. There are also various other scenarios in which a small organization would love to give a single purpose device to employee, who is working on the filled. But reluctant to pay huge amount for the setup.

However now the touchscreen based tablets are available. They can be easily ,converted into kiosk, by simply attaching it with some Stand, or putting it into some kiosk box. and also best device for single purpose activity on field. Moreover now the mobile OS manufacturer have entered in this segment by customizing their mobile OS for the tablets. This created a huge potential for already available developer community for mobile OS, to utilize their experience and creativity rapidly for tablets too. In a nutshell any mobile application developer can smartly put things together and come up with single purpose mobile device.

The concern, around single purpose mobile device are typically,

1. How to restrict the user from using this device for purposes which are not related to the business. Like browsing to other sites, security threats like connecting to other device over bluetooth, usb, etc. listening music , FM, or other such activity. making or receiving call.
2. Some time usage of specific accessories like credit-card-reader, printer or monitor, or other sensors.
3. Administration activity.
4. Power management.

Some simple use cases, can be achieved very well, by browser application and making sure that the user cant leave the browser application. e.g a kiosk at store,shows all the products, or a kiosk at museum. here there is no transaction involved. one very simple method is by putting it in a kiosk case that removes access to the home button and turning on the restrictions we’ll get what we want.

There are some advance use cases where user is doing a transaction. It could be purchasing a boarding pass. or paying money to get product, or redeeming the score,or credits etc.
In this kind of scenario a more secure and Sandbox style kiosk is required. You also need to disabled some features of the tablets.

Android OS is very handy to be completely tailored, But iOS is bit difficult for this scenario. However if the product is required to be only for a small vendor, it can still be possible with a jailbreak iPhone device.

To tailor the android OS, one method would be to write a custom home app that, replaces the default home app intent. See SlideScreen as an example of a non-traditional “home app for android”.

The other method is to get android source code and write your own custom ROM of Android You have to fetch yourself the source codes for Android and basically create a custom ROM. After applying all desired modifications you flash your ROM and install it to your device.

All you need to know about the source and the process of compiling the sources are located at android sources. You can view the source codes from your browser by following this link.

Note: This is a simple effort by IndiaNIC a Mobile Application Developer to upgrade your knowledge on the upcoming technology trends and latest happenings. All the information provided solely depends on our technical research and may differ in original consequences IndiaNIC is in no way responsible for it.