Fullscreen immersive mode on android 4.1 on Xperia Album

Question

On Android you can set SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION flag on View to hide software keys. And it seems that these keys cannot be hidden permanently on Android 4.1. Another flag is introduced in Android 4.4 SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE to not show navigation keys on first touch.

But on Xperia M devices with Android 4.1 there is application called 'Album'. Just a picture browser. It is able to hide navigation keys permanently. Even when one moves to next photo or zooms in/out. To show it you must tap screen. How is it possible to do on Android 4.1? Is it some Sony extension? Can I develop application with similar behaviour? I found some Sony SDK Add-on (http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/sony-add-on-sdk/) but it seems that there is no functionality like that.

Answer 1

This Album feature is a special Sony implementation. Unfortunately there is no public function available to implement this behavior in your application for Android < 4.4.