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Installing an APK on your phone using the Android SDK
Primarily, I work on the interaction design for our various Android devices at T-Mobile but there are many times I have to do QA, documentation, visual design and sometimes developery things like installing new builds and APKs (Android Package Files).
I noticed that most of the instructions I Googled are geared towards developers. They are highly-technical and are typically missing a step or two, with the assumption that the person reading them must already know those few steps. Well, most designers I know don’t know or have learned how to do this by painfully cobbling together instructions and I thought I’d share ALL of the steps involved to take the guess work out of it.
Before doing any of this though, let’s make sure you are setup correctly. I work on a Mac, so the instructions I provide will be based on this OS but if there is a request for Windows OS, I can provide that too.
- Let’s make sure you have the latest Android SDK installed. Once you’ve done this, be sure to change the folder name to “AndroidSDK.”
- Now go to Finder and find the folder.
- Move the folder into the root of your user profile and place a shortcut in the sidebar under “Places.” This will make things much easier when working with the SDK.
- Find the .apk file you are looking to install onto your phone and move it to the following path AndroidSDK > Tools
Equipment you will need:
- Android phone.
- Micro or mini usb cable connecting your phone to your computer.
- SD card in your phone.
Now let’s get your phone ready:
- Go to Settings on your phone and under Application Settings allow Unknown Sources. If an app is not in the Market Place, you need to enable this for the install to work.
- Also go to SD Card and Phone Storage under Settings and Disable Use for USB Storage.
Now you are all ready to take on APKs!
Installing an APK manually:
- Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal
- Now enter the following code:
- This will start adb and mount the device as a drive. Finally, you’ll want to install the app:
- These two commands will install the apk and restart your device.
$ cd AndroidSDK
$ cd Tools
$ ./adb remount
$./adb push [Name].apk system/app
$./adb reboot
You can now enjoy using the app!
Next post, I’m going to tackle how to uninstall a pesky, unresponsive APK.
By Gülay Birand
Published: July 28, 2010
2 Comments
Tagged In: Why are teenage girls texting more than teenage boys?
I was thinking about the story on Alexa Longueria, the 15 year old girl who fell into a manhole last year because she was too wrapped up in texting to notice, and it reminded me of my husband’s teenage cousin texting non-stop the last time we saw her. It was very interesting to see how she spent hours typing up responses when all I could think was: Why not just pick up the phone? Wouldn’t it be easier and faster simply talking? Which then brought me to my final question: What is it that makes texting so appealing to teenage girls?
It’s no secret that tweens and teenagers communicate via text messages much more frequently than adults but what I find fascinating, is that among this group, girls text an order of magnitude more than boys. According to study results from Mashable, girls send on average, 100 texts per day compared to the 30 texts boys send.
Among the various articles I read, there were a few patterns that emerged:
Teenage girls are more social than teenage boys - which leads them to have entire conversations texting. Their texts are more elaborate and they prolong conversations more so than their male counterparts. Texting is more comfortable than over the phone conversations - reducing the amount of social finesse required compared to a voice conversation. Girls feel the need to “pass notes” to each other more frequently – whether it be during a double date or in another uncomfortable social situation. Girls use texting as a way to communicate about the various interactions and provide support or exit strategies for each other. Texting is an asynchronous form of communication - which reduces the need to fill social gaps, those awkward silences are eradicated and there is more time to form a response without pressure.
Read more on the Mashable study:
http://mashable.com/2010/08/17/text-messaging-infographic/
