By AppBrain – the guys who are constantly innovating how you can use the Android Market away from your phone – just pushed an update to their Android app. The app will essentially allow you to install applications that you find in the market from AppBrain at the click (or a few clicks, in some cases) of a mouse button.
They’re calling the feature Fast Web Installer and it’s a separate add-on you’ll need to download from the market alongside the main AppBrain app. For installation and usage instructions, refer to AppBrain’s site (note: you’ll need to give AppBrain and FastWeb Installer permissions to use your Google account and install apps over the air this way). I’ve played around with it and it’s actually really simple. You find an app using AppBrain that you want to install, you give it permission to install the app, and then it pops up almost instantaneously (just like Vic Gundotra showed us at Google I/O).
I haven’t checked out the feature with a paid app (no, I have not yet taken the paid app pledge. Sorry.), but our friend Andrew Kameka at Androinica notes that only free apps are able to be installed with minimal clicks as I’ve described above. I’m guessing this is a security measure, but no light’s been shed on that by AppBrain themselves. If you want to try it out, you can find AppBrain Market Sync and the Fast Web Installer in the market today.
FastWeb Installer:
“no, I have not yet taken the paid app pledge. Sorry.”
Wait, what? Are you saying you’ve never paid for a Android application?
Cheap ass!!
@MrMojoz I have indeed. Many, in fact. It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke to Andrew at Androinica.com. For the purpose of trying out AppBrain’s new features, however, I have not paid for an app.
@Rick James Why is he a cheap ass for not paying for any apps yet? If everything he has needed has been free then….
I’d rather people not buy something just because they feel compelled to….I dunno compete with the Apple App Store in terms of revenue? What we have in Android is really the potential to get the most value out of paid apps. People seem to buy any and everything on iPhone. On Android either you’re going to have to truly offer something excellent or you’re going to give it away free. Most devs that shy away because they don’t think they will make money most likely don’t have anything truly worthwhile to offer. Using some nice graphical styling for a simple function should not warrant relatively big bucks.
Google should buy AppBrain and make an instant come up on the state of the market. I’m not quite sure I’d use their push install yet. I just fear someone somehow hijacking their channel of communication to your phone and installing something malicious. They’re doing some great work no doubt but I think I’ll wait on Google for this one.
I’ve only paid for a full version of PdaNet and it’s worth every cent of it. All the useful apps i’ve installed were offered free but i would’ve bought them if they were being sold, some of which include QIK, SECURITY GUARDER, SWYPE, LOOKOUT, DICTIONARY.COM & HISTORY ERASER just to mention a few. Thers’s nothing “cheap” about installing free apps.
Never paid for an app either. And NO I have no warez.
Almost bought SetCPU but found out it’s free on XDA forums…
If you don’t care about games you shouldn’t have to pay for anything.
AppBrain is awesome. They’re doing what I expected Google to do one year ago. Google should definitely buy them since they don’t seem to be able to come up with a comprehensive system like this on their own.
Been using appbrain since its launching, great tool especially seeing whats being viewed and what hot….
This would be quite nifty if it actually worked. I think there are a lot of restrictions to getting this to work properly. I’m running the latest Bugless Beast FroYo ROM and using a GoogleApps account as my primary account. Of course this doesn’t work for Picasa and Google Voice so I also have a gmail account setup on my phone. Hard to tell what, if anything, about my particular configuration causes this application to fail miserably.
Can I use this on my Eken M001 android tablet?
There is no android market on the tablet and this might make getting apps for it A LOT easier.
yep doesn’t work for me either. nexus 1 with froyo
Until Google buys them and makes it a part of OS, I’m not giving anyone my Google account access, where my credit card and other stuff is stored.
They need to figure out a way to let those of us on AT&T’s jacked up version of the market get apps that AT&T blocks.
@Zer0-9 I too use a GoogleApps account as my primary account and can not get the web install to work properly.