Why is "secondary unlock with NFC" not a thing? Why is all of the advice about how to use NFC *instead* of a PIN (like biometrics)?

I want MORE security on my high-tech "holds personal data" device, not less! I want 2FA for login when I'm away from home!

Apparently it's Google's fault 😐

"Due to Google removing NFC unlock support in Android, we have retired our own NFC Ring Unlock app as it relied on those availble code modules."

https://nfcring.com/apps/

I can't side-load it either. It's one of those apps that gets rejected as not compatible, gets a "try anyway?" and then fails as really definitely not compatible 😞

I don't think my usage even needs the Android API. The way I had it running was as a post-unlock "draw over everything" app.

Surely I'm not the only geek wanting to do this?

There's lots of old articles from 10 years ago. And lots of stuff about using NFC on Android to unlock a "smart" door. But not "add a second layer of unlock on my phone".

#NFC #Android #Geek

Maybe there's a "screen blocker" app that I can then enable/disable from Tasker, and let Tasker do the NFC reading and unlocking bit 🤔

Just need to work out what the right keywords would be to find such an app!

There's Touch-Lock apps that are intended for parents preventing kids accidentally touching things when they hold the phone by the edges.

The question is how much that risks completely locking me out when the NFC won't disable it!

Ah, the "which app" was because there's a built-in "Tags" app that also gets triggered on NFC read. I can disable it (not sure what other behaviour it loses) and Tasker gets the even passed straight through.

However, Tasker doesn't seem to want to kill the lock screen app when I run the "Kill App" action 😑

Also, I forgot how gods damned annoying Tasker is with its "Do you want me to show you a tutorial? What about this feature? Have you considered using this? We also to this! Integrate with Google Assistant" popups every three clicks.

Any #Android devs out there? Or people who tinkered with making things work.

If i have an APK file that won't install on modern Android (OnePlus's OxygenOS 15, which is basically Android 15), but was grandfathered into running on my older Pixel 6 (still worked even after I updated to Android 16), then how do I:

a) find out what's preventing it installing? or
b) validate what permissions/etc it requires that are no longer valid?

I'm getting "App not installed as app isn't compatible with your phone". I know the app uses an NFC API that's no longer available (see further up the thread) BUT it's seemingly non-essential to my use case given that it was still working fine!

(If it's possible WITHOUT installing all of the Android SDK etc and can be done with an upload to a website then all the better!)

And I guess the follow-up is whether I can modify the manifest, e.g. to remove a request for a permission that's no longer valid.

Target SDK is Ice Cream Sandwich. And there's no source code available (but it is Java, so there's a classes.dex)

Uploading the APK to ShenmeApp and following the links to doc pages about permissions then it looks like `USE_CREDENTIALS` and `MANAGE_ACCOUNTS` permissions may no longer exist 🤔

Don't know if that prevents an app installing.

Too much of the info online is very superficial. "Here's how to check which API version the APK is targetting".

Great. But that doesn't tell me which old permissions or features it might be trying to use that are getting it rejected on newer devices 😐

Ah. That might be it:

"Beginning with Android 14, you cannot install an app that targets SDK/API Level 23 or below, or in simpler words, Android version 6 or below. When you try to install such an app, you’ll be straightaway greeted with the “App not installed as App isn’t compatible with your phone” error."

It's targetting SDK 19 with a min of 15 😬

Found APK Explorer & Editor on F-Droid. Used the Quick Edit to increase the minimum SDK version. Even if I increase it to level 34.

Possibly because that quick edit is just the minimum, not the target. So my target stays at 21 😐

Just done a full decompile, edit and recompile (which signs with the APK Explorer key) and I get "invalid APK files selected" 😞