Samsung SEAP and Knox APIs at Enterprise Apps World

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to Enterprise Apps World in London to meet with Samsung and find out more about their SEAP developer program. SEAP is aimed at developers working on enterprise apps, and Samsung are building a number of APIs specifically aimed at this space.

One of the key benefits of the Knox APIs is the ability to put a device into a kiosk mode. Over the years, I've been asked time and time again whether a tablet could be locked down to provide a single-use device. For example, for public displays and interactive exhibition displays.

This has always been quite a difficult problem to solve. It could be ‘faked’ with a custom home app (but these were relatively easy to escape); rooting the devices (not an option for commercial use), or building some hardware frames to prevent access to, for example, home and exit buttons.

With Samsung devices running the Knox APIs, this capability comes built—in as a standard. Apps can easily disable access to the rest of the system and providing a ‘locked-down’ environment for all but administrators.

The use-cases for this are numerous, especially in tourism sectors where interactive displays are often used for exhibits, or where tablets are to be handed out for single-purpose use in research or educational projects.