side loading apps - installing apps onto 4 phones

[sophie999]

Hi,

I am new to android, coming from IOS and WinMo. I have a question about app sideloading.

Can I do that directly from the my mac (or PC)? I have 4 new android devices in the family, all with 16GB Flash and no SD card. I suppose I can use one card and move it from phone to phone to install apps, but that would be painful to do every time. Some of the apps are rather large, so e-mailing is not an option.

So, if I have .apk file on my computer, can I install it directly to the phone via usb mode? What tools will I need? Can I somehow transfer .apk app from computer directly to phone Flash memory and then install via file explorer????
Thanks a lot.

Sincerely,

Sophie

 

[Roze]

Hi,

I am new to android, coming from IOS and WinMo. I have a question about app sideloading.

Can I do that directly from the my mac (or PC)? I have 4 new android devices in the family, all with 16GB Flash and no SD card. I suppose I can use one card and move it from phone to phone to install apps, but that would be painful to do every time. Some of the apps are rather large, so e-mailing is not an option.

So, if I have .apk file on my computer, can I install it directly to the phone via usb mode? What tools will I need? Can I somehow transfer .apk app from computer directly to phone Flash memory and then install via file explorer????
Thanks a lot.

Sincerely,

Sophie

Hey Sophie,

You can install apps directly from the Android Market on the browser. If you set up one Google account to be shared between all of your phones, you can install the app onto each phone. I believe there's some licensing issue where only a paid app can be used at a time. I have not tried it, but I think this should work.

Yes you can transfer the apk from computer to the flashdrives via file explorer

I have moved your post to its own thread

 

[Yeahha]

You could also get a dropbox account and upload the apk file in it, most apk files you can backup with a file explorer like astro, then download it onto the other phones. Paid apps are different, if there is DRM they will only work if you buy them with the gmail account associated to each device, for someone who has multiple devices I suggest a family gmail address used to purchase apps or purchasing apps from amazon and sharing the amazon account with the entire family (I know it is okay with amazon to do this I am unsure about google and don't think that would be piracy) There may be a license check like Roze specified above where a paid app can only be used 1 at a time but I don't know, I know I have used a paid app on my mp3 player and phone at the same time and it didn't have issues so I would assume it would be another form of DRM check.

 

[pawdog]

The 16GB of internal memory is indeed an SD card in case you didn't know. I would suggest you go to the app market and download one of the file managers like astro or file explorer first. After you get that, attach you phone to the computer and go to the notification area and select the USB storage option, The computer should then see the SD card and you can put whatever you want on it.

After that, disconnect USB storage and open the file manager program, find the apk file and you install from there. The Dropbox approach in the previous post is also a good idea. I use both as the spirit hits me.