Crash Reporter for Android application developers
Programs crashing post release is not uncommon. Such situations are also not easy to handle as they might be occuring under certain conditions which might not easy to replicate. Crash dumps come in handy to solve such field issues.
Wikipedia defines crash reporter as "an application whose function is to report crash data to a third party, usually to the party responsible for the crashed program. Crash reports often include data such as stack traces, type of crash, and version of software. This information helps software developers to diagnose and fix the underlying problem causing the crash."
Imagine a Logistics Company who has deployed their newly developed "Proof of Delivery" (POD) application. The application was "sufficiently" tested in-house where it went through multiple validation cycles. It was then commissioned for use on hundreds on Android based devices going into the hands of the mobile workers.
Crashed Android application
Everything was working fine until one day a report came in coming in from the field stating that the POD application was crashing intermitently. There was apparently no way to reproduce the behavior consistently. The issue was escalated to the development team which got ready to look into the "bug". But there was problem. This particular phone was hundreds of miles away and there was no way the dev team could figure out what was happenning to the application. If only they could get hold of the stack trace when the application crashes. That was not possible as the end-user was a NOT programmer or a techie who could pull the crash report from the phone and send it to the development team.
Thats when the development team got an idea. They remembered when the devices were rolled-out, the IT department had installed a Remote Mobile Device Management solution to keep an eye on the devices in the field. This MDM system was actively being used to gather various device health information, to push new software updates, to secure and to track the phones.
IT manager knew about a feature in the MDM solution that could monitor any application on the device and could report issues incase the application failed. MDM was asked to monitor the POD application. The user was then asked to launch it.
Crash Report in SureMDM
A few hours later the application crashed, but this time MDM caught the crash, collect the crash report with stack trace. This crash report was provided to the development team. And voila! the problem was fixed in no time by the smart developers. New version of the POD application was re-deployed on the phones remotely using the MDM solution.
Conclusion
Crash Reporting is an important feature which ensures any serious issues with the application don't go un-reported. Sometimes such crash reports are the only way to diagnose and fix the problems.
Wondering which MDM solution supports Crash Reporting for Android devices. Thats SureMDM from 42Gears Mobility Systems. Now you can not only control and manage the mobile devices, but also the mobile applications when they run into problems.
42Gears Mobility Systems Releases Mobile Browser Lockdown for Windows Mobile and Windows CE devices
For Immediate Release
Bangalore, India – September 04, 2011: 42Gears Mobility Systems today announced release of latest version of KioskIE browser lockdown solution for mobile devices. KioskIE provides a secure and controlled environment for using mobile web applications on devices based on industrial grade Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows CE 6.0 platforms.
Web applications are easy to develop, deploy and update than the traditional client-server applications. But they require a web browser to run. Default browsers on mobile devices are designed for consumers with general purpose usability which is not suitable for running Mobile LOB (Line of business) applications including data collection applications such as warehouse management, field-service, parcel delivery etc.
KioskIE runs on top of built-in Internet Explorer browser that comes as part of Windows Mobile and Windows CE devices. KioskIE converts built-in general purpose browser into a locked-browser where extensive feature-set of original browser are still available to the web application developer but the end-users can only use the web application and nothing else. Various lockdown options include blocking access to un-allowed websites, disable tap-and-hold context menu, disable keypad and/or disable access to browser settings such as Favorites or Security options.
Lockdown of Internet Explorer is achieved easily using KioskIE control panel applet. And moreover whenever required administrator can quit the locked-down mode and return the browser to default settings.
"By providing easiest and most effective mobile browser lock down, 42Gears KioskIE is able to improve the productivity of mobile workers, increase application reliability and reduce the total cost associated with development and deployment of mobile web applications", said Onkar Singh, Managing Director at 42Gears.
KioskIE has become an important part of 42Gears Enterprise Mobility Management Suite along with SureMDM, SureLock and SureCop.
More information about KioskIE is available at http://www.42gears.com/products.html.
For free trial and price quotation email sales@42gears.com.
Single Most Effective Tip to Protect Smartphones
Mobile phones getting lost or stolen is a common occurrence. Almost 37% smartphone users have had this experience in the past. Loss of phone also means loss of privacy or critical business data which could cost more than the phone itself.
People will continue to lose phones but fortunately there is a secret to make sure that atleast the personal or business data does not fall into the wrong hands. And the secret is.... Passwords. Yes! Setting a Strong password (see the emphasis on "strong") can give you a peace of mind.
Not having a strong password is as good as not having one at all. I am sure you have heard about Murdoch phone hacking scandal. Reset your password if it is among the commonly used passwords. Have a look at top 10 stupid passwords.
If you are responsible for looking after IT assets of a company you must make it mandatory for employees with mobile phones and tablets to have a strong password set on their devices. Enforcing this simple and effective security policy should become a top priority for all companies. It's worth it.
SureMDM Product Handouts
Software product handouts work and here is the one we created for SureMDM. Note: These are not high resolution images.
SureMDM Product handout (Front)
SureMDM Handout (Back)
Android share grows in the Smartphone market
Android's share in the smartphone market has been steadily growing for the last few months. According to Millennial Media Android has now captured 61% of smartphone space. This is a 15% jump over last month figures leaving iOS far behind.
It remains to be seen how release of iOS 5 in coming months will impact this trend. With Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 in the scene along with acquisitions and lawsuits the smartphone war is getting bigger, louder and spicey.
Why am I unable to uninstall some application from my android phone?
There are few applications available on android marketplace, which when try to uninstall gives error message like below
The error message above is totally unintuitive and gives no idea what went wrong and what can possibly be done to successfully uninstall the app from the device. I hope in future Google puts in better error reporting for such situation.
Some applications, especially the ones under business administration category, require device administration privileges. Usually during install or during execution, these apps prompt the user to grant “Administrator” privilege. Once granted, these applications become capable of performing privileged tasks like locking the device, erasing data on device, reset the password on device, etc.
In addition, Android doesn’t allow direct uninstall of such application. Any attempt to uninstall such apps would result in screen similar to above. I guess this is to make sure that user doesn’t accidently remove such vital privileged apps (a better error message wouldn’t have harmed 
).
In order to uninstall such apps, we first need to deactivate it as a device administrator. Go to Settings ->Location and Security->Select device administrator screen
Uncheck the app you wish to uninstall, confirm the prompt to deactivate.
Once done, now you can go back to “Manage Applications” and uninstall the application.
Prakash
SureMDM: Mobile device management made easy
SureMDM client now available on Android Marketplace
SureMDM Nix agent is now published on Android Marketplace. You can search for "suremdm" on Android Marketplace or directly goto https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nix
and install it on your phones.
Android marketplace SureMDM Nix Agent page
Advantage of installing from android marketplace is that you don't have to enable "Allow installation of non-Market applications" to manage your device from SureMDM. Plus any upgrades we make to the software, automatically gets rolled into your devices.
To try SureMDM and to discover its comprehensive device management capabilities and easy to use interface, register for a free account at http://www.42gears.com.
New security feature for android device management using SureMDM
SureMDM adds another compelling security feature for android device management. IT administrators can now restrict users to access only approved applications.All other applications and system settings are password protected. This feature also blocks the user from installing any third-party applications.
Installed application list
Using this feature is very simple. Installed application list of a device now also shows which application packages are LOCKED. Administrators can select any package and LOCK/UNLOCK them from console. Once done, launching these applications will prompt for a password, failing which user cannot access the application.
Password prompt for locked application
To try android application lock down and tons of other SureMDM features, register for a free account at http://www.42gears.com.