The Perfect AppLock!

The title of today's post is the name of the Android application I have been using for several weeks now and I do recommend. The principle of the Perfect AppLock! is simple. Protect access to selected phone / tablet apps with a pin code. A principle so simple and useful, one would wonder it is not included in the operating system itself.

So how it works? Simple. Once installed, it lets you select any number of apps and assign a pin code to them. Now when such protected application is about to be brought to the foreground, it asks for a pin (or for an unlocking gesture).

Usage scenarios? Many. Nowadays all of us have sensitive data / access apps on our phones. Even email. I remember the old jokes we were making at the office when somebody left his PC unlocked. Immediately emails were coming from his account inviting for a free beer, up to you can just imagin what kind of ideas... "Hey what a cool phone, can you show me?" - a request I get very often as I often do have cool phones. And cool data / apps on them, like my stock brokerage application, banking application and even my address book I would not want everybody to explore.

Remember when I wrote about furnishing my Subaru with an Android tablet? Obviously this tablet is linked to my Google account, for convenience of having access to the address book. Or to have the apps I bought in the Market on my other Android devices. And now imagine you leave the car in a garage to be serviced. Why should a mechanic have access to your synchronized address book? Or your Android Market?

The Perfect AppLock! takes care of that. One worry I had before installing the app was how stable it would be. Or would there be any other pains related to having it on my systems. I could imagine memory leaks, battery drain, apps crashing. None of that is happening, and that is why I write this post. To say thank you and recommend.

And now to the iPhone users, then only thing I can offer you is pity. Apple does not allow apps like the Perfect AppLock! in the AppStore. So you are left in the cold. Or you can jailbreak your loved ones and head to Cydia. There are some you may like.