Lock Android Device to a Single Application

Question

My company is looking at selling an Android device with an application on that will do a certain task as a product to replace an embedded device.

However we need to some how lock the device to only have access to our application which we will develop and not be able to access the normal Android OS interface.

I would like the following:

1. When the device boots it must automatically load our application
2. There must be no way to exit the application, (unless if we maybe enter a master password) which will allows you access to the device

Is this possible to do, and how would one go about doing this?

Answer 1

There are several different possible solutions for this problem which are mentioned below, but there is no "out of the box" solution implemented in Android. (Edit: At least not before Android 5.0)

• Develop your application and activate it as standard Home Screen App/ Launcher. Users could only avoid this solution by booting in safe mode.
• Develop your own kernel (as mentioned by Chloe at the comments)
• Use a 3rd party application for this case. (This will mostly require root on your device) Different solutions are available at the Play Store (e.g. KioWare or SureLock). Search for Android Kiosk Mode to get more results.