Taking over the home key will not be done with a permission, period.

This is way you get to take over the home key: by having an intent-filter
saying you can be home, and letting the user explicitly select your app at
the point where they press home.  The home key is too central to the user's
security for it to be misdirected by some random application they installed
a month ago that at time time seemed okay to be able to "intercept home key"
(if they looked at it at all).

And as far as the lock screen goes -- nobody has said that there would never
be support for third party lock screens.  Right now, however, there isn't,
and there is no near-term plan to do so.  If you want to see why, start
perusing the lock screen code starting here:

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/frameworks/policies/base.git;a=blob;f=phone/com/android/internal/policy/impl/PhoneWindowManager.java<http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/frameworks/policies/base.git;a=blob;f=phone/com/android/internal/policy/impl/PhoneWindowManager.java;h=e57fbe8b544b608ba7040b4c1d40b01cd01fe082;hb=HEAD>

Lock screen management is extremely complicated, and not in any shape at
this point to be user replaceable.  At the very least, all of the points of
contacts with the rest of the system (complicated interaction with the
in-call experience in various states, dealing with emergency dialing that is
legally required and the related SIM states that go with it, deep fragile
interaction with low-level power management and event dispatching, etc)
needs to be deeply abstracted out of the UI itself.  And then there are all
of the issues of dealing with this now no longer trusted third party code
when it crashes or otherwise misbehaves.

This isn't just "oh those mean Android people won't let me write a few lines
of code to replace the lock screen."

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Lance Nanek <lna...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Allowing apps like this, but requiring a permission seems like it
> would support the most users.
>
> Users who want a fancy toddler lock or screensaver or different unlock
> screen or whatever could then use those apps and would just have to
> agree to an extra permission when installing.
>
> Users who don't want any app to have this level of access just have to
> check for the permission being requested and not install.
>
> On Dec 9, 8:07 pm, Jason Proctor <jason.android.li...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >Or purposely writing code to break them as with the promises Diane
> > >made on this topic.
> >
> > oh sorry i didn't know there were promises made re home button or
> > lock app replacements. what were they?
> >
> > >Making it impossible to replace the screen lock app doesn't enhance
> > >security.  Knowing Android engineers will purposely write code to
> > >break any discovered workarounds for the restrictions isn't enhancing
> > >security either.
> >
> > do you really want lock app replacements that ship your phone ID and
> > lock code around the network?
> >
> > >Fairly open != open.
> >
> > can you, or can you not, create exactly the Android distro you want?
> > yes, you can. hence, open. the owners of distros, which could be you,
> > decide how open particular distros are.
> >
> > >Apples and oranges.
> >
> > not at all -- stick whatever drivers you like in your distro. nobody
> > else's distro is obliged to take them. ditto your lock app
> > replacement or home button override. this arrangement is a feature,
> > IMHO.
> >
> > --
> > jason.vp.engineering.particle
>
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-- 
Dianne Hackborn
Android framework engineer
hack...@android.com

Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to
provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails.  All such
questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and
answer them.

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