How does the buying and downloading of apps work technically?
1) Do any of the apps come with any type of copy protection, or can expensive apps simply be copied to another android device?
2) If I buy an app on the Google Play site on my PC, how does the download work? What triggers the device to start downloading? And how does it do? Does it log in to some ftp site?
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So, went out and picked up a Mini Pro for the misses.
Well, off the bat I went crazy cause I couldn't find "Market" and well...after searching online, guess this damn region doesn't support the Market. How wonderful is that, so downloaded stuff online through slideme. Which really still sucks.
Then when I downloaded things to my laptop and wanted to bluetooth them over, I couldn't. Then when I wanted to send ringtones from my phone to the mini pro, I couldn't. So I searched, and wouldn't you know it. I gotta download a program, so I downloaded bluetooth explorer and then it prompted me that I gotta root this SOB to be able to send files through bluetooth? Did I just buy an iPhone or what?!
So I plugged in the phone through USB. And we copied over the APK. and I downloaded a file explorer, so I could get to the damn APK (really no file explorer included, or clearly apparent?). And when we launched the file (MSN), we found we couldn't send files, images, or anything other than text. Are you kidding me?
With all these limitations, how is Android so popular?
Are there any possible solutions without having to root this bastard? (aside from MSN). I just bought this thing and don't wanna void warranty so damn early so I could make it something PRACTICAL like every other phone.
I'm guessing you're used to nokia's and the like. I must say i've found bluetooth file transfer a little hit and miss on android, but you need an app called bluetooth file transfer but it's on the market i'm afraid. Where are you then? You can get the market app from these forums and an enabler for regions not supported so you may need to do some digging.
Sent from my E10i using XDA App
Not used to Nokia's. Used to WinMo and running Android Froyo on my Topaz.
Could not find the market standalone app for the life of me. And the phone is from Saudi Arabia, and I can't justify rooting it just yet.
@bmzloum
Hi! I feel your pain. Android Marketplace is not supported in my part of the world too. I am looking for alternate ways to get apps into my phone.
You mentioned that you had to download a separate File Manager to get to the .apk files. Can you tell me which app you are using?
Also how did you manage to install the File Manager in the first place if you could not get to the .apk files?
Do you copy the .apk files to your MicroSD card? Do you any other advice to make installation easier if we download the Apps to our computer then then try to install them to our phone?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cheers and good luck with your new phone.
Appbrain App Market and Apktor are viable alternatives for getting apps on your phone, the latter you'll need to find public repositories for. Sorry can't post links cause of restrictions on a new account, but google knows all.
drussthelegend said:
You mentioned that you had to download a separate File Manager to get to the .apk files. Can you tell me which app you are using?
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Hey, found
Code:
http://slideme.org/
which let me download with the barcode, and then I installed the sites app manager directly on there. There are a ton of file managers, I downloaded two, I forget which. But the two most popular ones. Both worked, but only one handled ZIP files. I don't have the phone beside me, so can't recall...
I found the Market standalone apk, but it crashed everytime I clicked on "Download" so I gave up on it.
I'm gonna try those suggestions posted up and see if they have a few new nice apps on there.
I had the exact same issue as others above. My solution was to use the debranded UK Firmware, root the phone and then use the Bluetooth File Manager.
bmazloum: My phone also came from the UAE side and didn't have the Market. I used Omnius to flash the firmware. A friend of mine on the otherhand paid the local Sony Service Centre to flash and debrand the ROM. Maybe this might help
Guys you don't have to move the apk file over to the phone in order to install it btw... get Adb from the Android SDK and then place the apk file in the same folder as adb.
And then from command prompt, navigate to the folder with adb and your apk and type "adb install example.apk".
Make sure you have USB Debugging (Applications -> Development) enabled and that's it.
Works nicely on a Mini. Not sure about the Pro to be honest.
Hey guys, for the life of me, I can't find that wonderful software that allows you to install apps without connecting the phone to the computer?
It's something to do with hosting it via cloud and then connecting with it wirelessly to download and install?
dropbox.........
dropbox, appbrain, awesome drop...
appbrain is very cool if you use their site to browse the market. You can click on the apps in your browser (pc) and then have them automatically install on your phone.
Thanks guys!
Hey man, if you do go with dropbox (amazing), I have a referral link in my sticky thread (general section) that would give us each an additional 250MBs.
I used your referral link. Quick question on dropbox, is there a way to upload an entire folder on the phone instead of 1 file at a time?
Hi all,
I just playing around this awesome apps "Dropbox" installed from the Market.
It work very good in syncing your apps,pics,videos,files and other kind of data.
Steps:
1) Install dropbox applications in your PC and run it. You will required to create new user name and password for logging in. For free user you would get 2GB space. But space will increase if you invite others to joint dropbox.
2) In your phone, install dropbox.apk from the market and run it. Using the same user name and password you created earlier to login. You would see exactly the same folders listed in your phone dropbox app as in your PC.
3) Now everything you drop files into this drop box will be available across your sync dropbox. If you have two or three PC or three phones which all of them having dropbox installed. The same files will be available across each other.
4) You can share a folder to your friends around so every one of your friend would get what you wanted to shared with like music,apps,pics..etc..
Conclusion: You would litterally save phone memory space by having your files in dropbox. But you need internet access to access these files.
Check out here : www.dropbox.com to start download the PC dropbox.exe
And here for andriod market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android&feature=search_result
Let me know anyone of you would like to share folder with me. Email address is the only required to start sharing.
You could also use Dropbox for Titanium Backup Pro - save everything to the cloud, so you don't depend on the physical memory.
Also, you can set your torrent client to watch a certain folder on your computer, and sync that folder with Dropbox. Thus, if you add a torrent there (by phone even), and if your computer is on, the download will start automatically.
I can't download apps from market on my Android device(maybe due to a network issue), so I'm wondering how could I download the apk file of an app on my PC from market.android.com ?
Nope, it just pushes the app directly to your phone. What error is your phone giving you?
you can't download the apk file straight from market
just straight download and install
wonderfuly said:
I can't download apps from market on my Android device(maybe due to a network issue), so I'm wondering how could I download the apk file of an app on my PC from market.android.com ?
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I believe that Google have been experiencing intermittent market issues their end over the last few days as many others in my local forum have reported issues......just give it some time and try again.
so has any one found a way to download apk files directly from the web via windows / linux with out using android phone / emulator
my phone has not been able to download new files for like a year now .. the downloads just never start ....
surly their must be a firefox plugin by now ?
unless you download it from some site like mediafire, 4shared which is not highly recommended.
there is a method to get .apk from the android market. But just a disclaimer, this doesn't apply to every app on the market.
Just click the app author's name and it will show you the list of other apps the author has on the market. On that page, there is a link saying "visit website for <author>", follow that link. If the author has his website tied directly to sites.google.com, at the bottom of that page there are options to download the .apk of his apps directly to your PC. Of course this mostly happens to apps which are free to begin with.
But just in case, you can also try going to the author's main website and check if they offer their apps as direct .apk download. HTH
Hi there wondering if anyone can help , downloader app suddenly not working , unable to use the browser within downloader ,now has message (the page you trying to access is restricted due to a security rule) same message in the help tab , or can someone recommend an alternative compatible download manager for the shield.
Thanks in advance as a bit of a novice with this
glitch7 said:
Hi there wondering if anyone can help , downloader app suddenly not working , unable to use the browser within downloader ,now has message (the page you trying to access is restricted due to a security rule) same message in the help tab , or can someone recommend an alternative compatible download manager for the shield.
Thanks in advance as a bit of a novice with this
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you need Downloader Browser-Plugin 1.0
Have the same problem with my new "Vodafone TV" box and couldn't find any solution in the internet. Tried loading the browser plugin suggested above but same error message! The downloader app just simply won't connect to the net, period!!!
So, anyone has a solution, or as the op said, can anyone suggest an alternative?
Pitching in, as I'm a new Shield user with the same issue. Here's the page from AFTnews explaining the issue and the work-around; includes an installation video.
aftvnews.com/browser-plugin-now-available-for-downloader-app-on-android-tv
In short, browser capability had to be removed from the Google Play version so the app could remain in the store. The dev provides an APK at browser.aftvnews.com to add the capability back in. Should be the same APK as rainman74 linked to above (Downloader-Browser-Plugin-v1.0.apk).
However, the AFTnews' recommended action of pointing the Download app's browser to browser.aftvnews.com did not work for me; I received the same web access error message from Downloader.
To get around this, I loaded another web browser (Puffin for Android TV), entered the browser.aftvnews.com URL, and Puffin downloaded the APK. I needed to relaunch Puffin, then select the APK from Puffin's download list to install. Once installed, Downloader was able to access the web.
Hope this helps.
mpwalters said:
Pitching in, as I'm a new Shield user with the same issue. Here's the page from AFTnews explaining the issue and the work-around; includes an installation video.
aftvnews.com/browser-plugin-now-available-for-downloader-app-on-android-tv
In short, browser capability had to be removed from the Google Play version so the app could remain in the store. The dev provides an APK at browser.aftvnews.com to add the capability back in. Should be the same APK as rainman74 linked to above (Downloader-Browser-Plugin-v1.0.apk).
However, the AFTnews' recommended action of pointing the Download app's browser to browser.aftvnews.com did not work for me; I received the same web access error message from Downloader.
To get around this, I loaded another web browser (Puffin for Android TV), entered the browser.aftvnews.com URL, and Puffin downloaded the APK. I needed to relaunch Puffin, then select the APK from Puffin's download list to install. Once installed, Downloader was able to access the web.
Hope this helps.
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So what do you actually enter at the Downloader http:|| screen?
Good question. I may not have been clear, but I was not able to download the patch APK through the Download application.
Instead, I installed another web browser application (Puffin TV, available in the Android TV's play store) and put the browser.aftvnews.com URL in there. When the Puffin TV web browser loaded the URL, it automatically downloaded the APK from the site.
Once the APK was downloaded, I returned to Puffin TV's main menu and selected the file from the download list. When I selected the APK, it installed the APK to patch Downloader. After that, the Downloader app was able to again access the Internet through its browser.
Note: if you are installing Puffin TV to install the APK, you will need to tell your device to allow Puffin TV to install APK's. By default, Android doesn't grant permission for applications to install APK's. That's OK; you can do so under settings and my guess is your device will tell you how to do so.