Question Lock down Android 4.3 phone to make it a dedicate music player?

[dpbsmith]

I have an old Samsung phone running Android 4.3. I want to make a present of some music and podcasts to an 11-year-old by putting them on the phone and giving it to him. I can transfer .mp3 files from my Mac with Android File Exchange, which works beautifully, and play them with the Music app, so that part is OK.

I want to turn it into a dedicated music player by removing, hiding, or disabling everything but the Music app.

It doesn't need to be heavy security--his folks trust him to watch YouTube videos on an unlocked iPad--but basically I want to turn it into a dedicated music player. I don't want it to work as a web browser, for example.

Current tools "parental control" tools such as Google Family Link don't even show in Google Play. Norton Family, which is preloaded on it, will not run.

Thoughts?

 

[VidJunky]

Perhaps if the device has a parental app you could lock it down as you describe but to simply disable apps leaves them open to being enabled again and let's face it kids today have a grasp on anything with a screen so it would barely slow them down. What you could do is look for a root solution, especially if the phone was ever popular. Through root you could remove apps that you don't want and leave ones you do. Preinstalled apps like the browser won't be removable under normal circumstances. Truthfully they may not be able to view YouTube anyway. YT has a history of decommissioning old versions and Android 4 would seem to qualify. Plus it is likely too old to even be updated to a working version. You might test it to see if that is even possible.

Beyond something with a password like a parental app, I don't see anyway that it can be truly locked down the way you describe. It might be old enough to have Kid Zone, that's a restrictive desktop that allows minimal functionality which might include playing music.

You might look at old YouTube videos to see if there is anything from way back.

Wish I could be more helpful.

Best wishes

 

[B. Diddy]

I was going to suggest using the Kids Place launcher, but it looks like that requires at least Android 4.4. You could still give it a try, though. Or look for a similar kind of app, although does the Play Store still even work on such an old device? If not, then you'd probably have to find an apk at a safe resource -- I would only use APKMirror, which is run by Android Police.

 

[VidJunky]

@B. Diddy I knew Kids Zone didn't sound quite right. Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

@B. Diddy I knew Kids Zone didn't sound quite right. Thanks.

There probably was some feature or app called Kids Zone as well -- I'm just referring to a specific 3rd party launcher I've used in the past that works quite well.

 

[VidJunky]

I wouldn't be surprised if there was but no I'm fairly certain that is the same app I had on my HTC devices. You put in the birthday and it picked activities for that age range and upped it automatically as time went by. I think on my 3rd or 4th phone it started letting you add your own apps to the list. Ahh the good old days. LOL.