About this app

Status as of 10 June 2016:

This app is now unpublished and unsupported. If it you already have it and it works on your current device, there's no reason to stop using it, but it will probably stop working when you upgrade to Android 6.0.

If you're one of the very few people who purchased the in-app upgrade to Pro features and you'd like a refund, please email me. I'd be happy to issue a refund to anyone who asks. (But be patient, since I won't be checking the A Lock Block email very often.)

Reason for the change:

This app worked very well for me on my test devices until Android 6.0 came out. But the app depended on a deprecated API that no longer works on Android 6.0. Because of the differences between different Android manufacturers, and because Google never meant for the API to be used in this way (temporarily completely bypassing the lock screen), it sometimes doesn't work even on pre-6.0 devices, and it may work on some post-6.0 devices. But there is no way to make it work consistently, so it does not and cannot live up to my standards as a developer.

In any case, very few people ever installed the app, so it was a relatively easy decision to simply discontinue the app, unpublishing it from the Play Store and offering a refund in case any of the 25 people who ever purchased Pro features feel that is warranted.

Personally, I used the app every day pre-6.0 and would be very bummed to have it stop working, except that my first experience of Android 6.0 was on my Nexus 6P, which has a fingerprint reader which both wakes the device and unlocks it. So thankfully I still don't have to deal with a lock screen. I hope that over the next couple of years these fingerprint readers become standard on most devices.

In the meantime, I have other apps with many more users that I need to update and maintain, and a web app almost ready to go that I plan to release in a few months. I need to focus my time and energy on apps that have more than a few users and which I can ensure meet my standard of quality (again, A Lock Block was a bit of a hack and is not possible to make work consistently).

To those of you who used this app, and especially those who upgraded, I appreciate your support. I just finished my degree and am returning to work full time on my apps. A Lock Block, while very useful to me and a few of you for a little while, was not a success -- but I'll continue to work on ad-free, user-friendly apps (that are open-source where feasible), and hopefully you'll find some of them useful.

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Temporarily disable the lock screen, manually or automatically

This app allows you to temporarily disable your device's lock screen. You can do this manually from the main window (or from the notification for Pro users), and you can have it done automatically (Pro-only) when plugging in the device (I don't want a lock screen while my device is plugged in on my desk).

The app is free, which allows you to manually disable and re-enable the lock screen. A very small fee unlocks several convenient features if desired.

New features

v1.0.2

• Fix for crash on Moto G reported in Developer Console.

App Permissions

Allows an application to receive the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED that is broadcast after the system finishes booting.
Allows applications to disable the keyguard if it is not secure.
Allows using PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming.