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M
Moombas
Level 4.4: KitKat
August 28, 2023
Question

Disable gesture mode

  • August 28, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 1 view

Hi all,

has anyone been able to force fully managed devices to use 3 button navigation instead of gesture mode which is very painfull (since Android is forcing this) in many admin cases?

Could be also be an intent if available.

Our vendor of the devices tried to integrate that into their OEM config app but (as they told us) Google restricted that, so we ended up to do this manually on every single device.

Maybe @Lizzie you know someone to ask about that?

3 replies

Lizzie
Lizzie
Community Manager
August 29, 2023

Hey @Moombas,

 

I hope you are having a great start to the week. 

 

Thanks for checking, I'm going to have a look into this and get back to you. I wonder would you mind providing a bit more context on why the gesture mode isn't suitable please?

 

Thanks so much,

Lizzie

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M
MoombasAuthor
Level 4.4: KitKat
August 29, 2023

One thing is personnel: I like buttons way more because they are faster to execute = more productive (ex. pressing on a button is faster than swiping to right or up).

The other thing is "remote control" related: You can't use gestures in a good way if you remote control a device, buttons are way better, even there's a menu available providing you some of the options. Again way faster to work directly on the screen than to push those buttons outside of it.

Also to get (for example) in our MDM out of the kiosk mode you may need to push the "back" (triangle) button long to get prompted to enter admin password (especially directly on the device if it's offline for some reason). This isn't possible with gesture mode.

 

I mean if Google want's to force such thing, ok. But then provide MDM's, companies etc. to set this automatically to what they want via OEMConfig app, intent or similar instead of doing this manually. We are looking forward for a bigger replacement where this could be nice not to do manually.

    J
    jasonbayton
    Level: 4.1: Jelly bean
    September 1, 2023

    Our vendor of the devices tried to integrate that into their OEM config app but (as they told us) Google restricted that

    I'd love to hear more about this, while it's not on my immediate device roadmap it's something more customers are asking for and I see no technical reason a settings config wouldn't be supported within OEMConfig. Device manufacturing/software partners have a tendency to rule things out without much research/effort, so I'd push back on that.

    M
    MoombasAuthor
    Level 4.4: KitKat
    September 1, 2023

    We were in contact with the manufacturer because of that and they said, they would have a solution but can't apply because Google restricts.

    Their response was: "We have already studied the possibilities to include this in our OEM config app but based on Google limitations we cannot do that."

     

    And in general I see no reason to restrict an EMM changing settings on a fully managed device. On such a device all settings should be able to be changed.

    J
    jasonbayton
    Level: 4.1: Jelly bean
    September 1, 2023

    Ask them for their full technical feasibility study and results, including links or references to what they say Google doesn't permit. 

     

    I get this on a monthly basis

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