Getting rid of Status Bar on 4.1 I need to get rid of the system bar on Android 4.1 tablets since the tablets will be in a commercial/retail environment and be used for business. My app will be the only app used on the tablet and it needs as much screen real estate as possible for what we're trying to do. I have searched already and I see that there are ways to do it on a rooted tablet, however since this will be in a business and deployed to several hundred or thousand businesses, I cannot have all the tablets rooted for legal and security issues. (Would I really have issues legally though if I were to root them?)

I know that you can dim the status bar and make the buttons dots but that really isn't optimal.

If there is no way to get rid of it, is it possible to change the status bar icons and functionality? I ask this because our app has a status bar on top and we could possibly move it to the bottom and change the icons and functionality of the status bar to match the app's status bar so no screen real estate is lost.

I have read that 4.2 adds some fullscreen functionality for apps. Is this true? Can the status bar be hidden in 4.2 as opposed to 4.1?
No, the bottom system bar (that's the one with the home, back, and recent buttons) can't be hidden on a stock device without rooting it and using a custom system image. The soft home button is very important because it gives you a way to get back to the home screen that can't be overridden by apps: this includes getting out of an unresponsive or broken app.

On 4.0 and above an app author can temporarily hide both bars, but touching the screen or pressing any hard key (including volume) will bring them back, so that doesn't prevent people leaving the app. (And quite right! It would be crazy for stock Android to let one app take over the whole system.)


  The SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION is a new flag that requests the navigation bar hide completely. Be aware that this works only for the navigation bar used by some handsets (it does not hide the system bar on tablets). The navigation bar returns to view as soon as the system receives user input. As such, this mode is useful primarily for video playback or other cases in which the whole screen is needed but user input is not required.
  
  http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-4.0.html


It's worth noting that a full kiosk mode (not letting the user leave the app at all) has been announced for Android L, but the app has to be a device administrator to enter this mode.