Nearly everyone is familiar with the rather ubiquitous Android lock screen, which usually requires a flick or a complex pattern to open up. Well, that being all over now, there are only so many intuitive patterns that people usually draw, and in this world, your pattern for a person right next to you might be a dead giveaway. Lo and behold, your phone is compromised if they chance upon your phone.
This is where new ways come in. Similar to Windows 8’s picture password features, you can do away with the grid of points gesture system. Instead choose a picture of your choice, and then make an arbitrary gesture on it. This gesture can now be more ambiguous about where the key points in the password are, and thus making it easy for people to guess your pattern. Do this with the app: Picture Password Lockscreen. Another way is to just hide the lock screen altogether. The app Hidden Lock will allow you to show the last working snap of your phone as your lock screen, so that it isn’t conspicuous that you’re unlocking — then do a gesture swipe, and go back to work.
If you’re worried about the new Android features such as widgets for nifty little things overtaking your lock screen, you can meddle around with those settings and make things much more safe by using Lockscreen Policy, an app that lets you, for example, manage how your Gmail widget is accessed, and like.