Optional biometric request

[d3xt3r01]

Hi,

I'm wondering if a biometric ( fingerprint/password or whatever the OS has set up ) can be added as an option when the application launches for added protection.

Thanks.

[oakkitten]

This sounds like a very niche functionality. Normally you'd expect the entire phone to be fingerprint/password-locked. Also, there are apps such as AppLock that seem to be providing this functionality, which seems to be better suited for third-party apps. I wonder what's the use case here, and whether these apps do not work for some reason?

[d3xt3r01]

It's not niche. Whatsapp Has it, Telegram has it...
I agree there are other was of protecting the phone, but I think it's easier and faster to have this kind of option built in rather than using 3rd party apps.
The main idea is that I want to be able to give the phone to other people but restrict access to some apps.
Those apps work but I find some have ads, not many are opensource...etc.
I imagine it's a "simple" ask for biometrics request before launching the main activity. Sorry, I don't want to underestimate the work!
Sorry for the late reply!

[oakkitten]

Aight if WhatsApp and Telegram both have it, this is a reasonable request. The task sounds simple on the surface but as with everything on Android we will probably have to handle various API versions, device capabilities, edge cases, etc. Also we'll probably have to think about when to lock the app. (Minutes of inactivity? Screen off?) Also handle the cases where you share something to the locked app—might be not trivial. So unless you are willing to take on this feature yourself, this just might take a while. 😛

[polyzen]

https://github.com/vector-im/element-android (Matrix client) also implements this.