Disabling the Screen Lock on Android
by Jiang on Nov.28, 2008, under Android
Most embedded mobile devices have an option to automatically lock the interface when idle to prevent accidental access, and the Android-powered G1 is no exception. Interestingly, some people actually want to disable this feature. There’s no direct interface to this setting, however. While tinkering with the Setup Wizard applet, I may have stumbled upon a hack.
- using AnyCut, create a shortcut to the activity “Setup Wizard”
- launch “Setup Wizard”
- unplug+replug the battery and power on the device
The applet apparently disables the lock and re-enables it when it finishes. I wanted the screen lock back so I simply ran “Setup Wizard” again, this time completing the procedure.
Note that this method also disables the manual lock triggered by pressing the End button.
December 29th, 2008: Incidentally, other people have noticed strange effects after a botched Setup Wizard. The folks at xda-developers have experienced similar effects, but their connection to Setup Wizard is at the moment unconfirmed.
Popularity: 13%
December 28th, 2008 on 3:47 am
And it disables Home, and it mostly disables Call, and gawd knows what else it does.
December 29th, 2008 on 3:50 pm
That’s pretty interesting. I suppose this warrants additional investigation.
January 26th, 2009 on 1:32 pm
I just verified…
Doing this disables your “Home” button, and your green “Call” button. Not worth it in my opinion… two commonly used buttons that I personally, am not willing to sacrifice to save myself one “Menu click”
February 24th, 2009 on 7:07 pm
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