Develop Reference

Android Market list apps by package name

Its possible list apps by the package name it uses?
Example:
com.google.earth
com.google.android.apps.giant
And get a list with only two apps?
EDIT:
I want open google play store app in my device and search apps by multiples packages name.
Imagine this picture but with other apps... exactly the app with package name "com.google.earth" and "com.google.android.apps.giant"

From the official documentation, there is no way to achieve this.
You can only open a single app detail page:
market://details?id=<package_name>
the list of app from a developer:
market://search?q=pub:<publisher_name>
Or a search query
market://search?q=<seach_query>&c=apps

Yes, it is possible to do so. You can use the PackageManager as follows, which will grab all of the installed apps and put them in a List. Then, you can grab the two apps that you want from that List and store them in another list.
final PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
List<ApplicationInfo> packages = pm.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
You can iterate over the List as follows:
for (ApplicationInfo packageInfo : packages) { ... }
In that loop, you can:
Get the installed package name:
packageInfo.packageName
Get the source directory:
packageInfo.sourceDir
Launch the Activity:
pm.getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageInfo.packageName)

Find out if a specific Android app was previously installed

I have an App which provides you a list of various apps that you can download and install from Play Store to earn goodies. Now, I don't want a user to uninstall a previously installed app and download it again through my app and earn goodies.
Is there a way to find out if a specific app was previously installed on the user's device?
Update
I am interested in all the apps installed/uninstalled, regardless of when my app was installed. I don't want to store any data about any app installs on my end, I want to know if this data is already stored on the device somewhere for further reference.
Note
I am also interested in the apps that we uninstalled. Can I get this data too?

I can see where you are trying to go, but I think you need to rethink the approach a bit. You should always allow your users to install and uninstall as they wish. But you can put a check in the app to see when the app was first installed.
PackageInfo info = pm.getPackageInfo(packageName, 0);
long firstInstallTime = info.firstInstallTime;
This will store the time the app was first installed in firstInstallTime
This time stamp will not change with any number of subsequent uninstalls and re-installs.
The PackageInfo class provides a bunch of other useful info about your app on the device and is well worth getting to know.
You can compare this to the timestamp when the apps source directory was last modified (in other words when the app was most recent installed), which you can obtain with:
ApplicationInfo appInfo = context.getPackageManager().getApplicationInfo(packageName, 0);
long mostRecentInstallTime = new File(appInfo.sourceDir).lastModified();
I've also used this approach to give users a 1 week trial of an apps full features before reverting to the lesser "free mode", and they can't trip it up by uninstalling and re-installing.
Additional:
In response to your comment...
You are not just restricted to getting PackageInfo for your own app or apps installed after yours was. You can get PackageInfo for all apps currently on the device, regardless of when they were installed in the "devices lifetime".
This slightly modified version of the code found here will give you the firstInstallTime for all apps on the device:
// Get PackageInfo for each app on the device
List<PackageInfo> packageInfoInstalledPackages = getPackageManager().getInstalledPackages(0);
// Now iterate through to get the info you need.
long[] firstInstallTimes = long[packageInfoInstalledPackages.size()];
for(int i=0;i<packageInfoInstalledPackages.size();i++) {
PackageInfo p = packageInfoInstalledPackages.get(i);
if (p.versionName != null) {
firstInstallTimes[i] = p.firstInstallTime;
}
}
You can also get the ApplicationInfo so you should have all you need.

This snippet will log all the main activities of the apps installed on you device, you just have to check that list for a given app
final Intent mainIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN, null);
mainIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
final List <ResolveInfo> pkgAppsList = getPackageManager().queryIntentActivities( mainIntent, 0);
for(ResolveInfo resolve : pkgAppsList)
{
Log.d("MY_APP", resolve.toString());
}
Hope it helps!

How to find the package name of default settings application

I want to prevent launching of task manager and Settings applications in my application. For this, I tried to obtain currently running application and checked whether their package name is allowed or not .If it is not allowed then show a new activity.
When work out it is show that the package name of default android Settings application is com.android.settings. Now I have some doubts
Is the Settings application has package name com.android.settings in all android versions? If not, which are they?
How to find package name of Task Manager?

try this
private String querySettingPkgName() {
Intent intent = new Intent(android.provider.Settings.ACTION_SETTINGS);
List<ResolveInfo> resolveInfos = getPackageManager().queryIntentActivities(intent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);
if (resolveInfos == null || resolveInfos.size() == 0) {
return "";
}
return resolveInfos.get(0).activityInfo.packageName;
}

For this,I tried to obtain currently running application and checked whether their package name is allowed or not .If it is not allowed then show a new activity.
Fortunately, for the users affected by your app, this will be unreliable.
Is the Settings application has package name com.android.settings in all android versions?
Not necessarily. More importantly, any given firmware can have any number of applications that modify settings, supplied by the firmware author. Some settings can be modified even without being part of the firmware, particularly on rooted devices.
If not,which are they?
You are welcome to make a list of all device manufacturers and ROM mod authors and ask them that question.
How to find package name of Task Manager?
There are any number of "task manager" apps included in devices, ROM mods, and available on the Play Store and other distribution points. You are welcome to make a list of all of them and ask their authors that question.

shell into the device using adb, and invoke:
pm list packages
this will provide you a list of pacakges. from there you will should see:
com.android.settings

final PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
List<ApplicationInfo> packages = pm.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
for (ApplicationInfo packageInfo : packages) {
Log.d("Packages", "" + packageInfo.packageName);
}
above code should help you

It's not totally clear what is the scenario.
I guess it is something along the lines of showing off devices to public but not have them f'up the device for others.
Maybe it would be better to do a whitelist instead of a blacklist. Meaning the shop should state which apps should be testable on the devices and then you start your activity if it is any other.
But this again will need maintenance: package names of popular apps may also change. You better provide a way of updating the settings of your app via an online service so you can change the needed packages without physical access to the devices and without having to download and install the complete app.
If you just need a device that goes through many hands and should not be tempered with I suggest using a modified device. I only know of Sonim: they provide a library (needs a Sonim provided hash key in your manifest to use that). With it you can prohibit the altering of many settings without preventing access to the whole settings app.

How to differentiate the applications with same name in android?

In android I am listing the installed application list and storing in my private db. In that some application have same name, example there are 4 application named Maps, If one application gets update, other 3 applications records in private db get updated. How to differentiate those applications? I have used following code to get the installed application list.
PackageManager pm = this.getPackageManager();
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN, null);
intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
List<ResolveInfo> list = pm.queryIntentActivities(intent,
PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED);
ArrayList<String> applist = new ArrayList<String>();
ArrayList<String> packlist = new ArrayList<String>();
for (ResolveInfo rInfo : list) {
packlist.add(rInfo.activityInfo.packageName);
applist.add(rInfo.activityInfo.applicationInfo.loadLabel(pm)
.toString());
}

Use install paths as unique identifiers (they won't be installed in the same dir).
On the other hand, read this article if you have time. Packages have their configuration which contains UID. The link is from this answer.

You shouldn't differentiate two applications by their names. Some applications don't even have names associated with them (i.e. they are empty). The only sure way to distinguish two applications is by their package name (and this is heavily used by OS too).
Also note that while package name will always be the same, the UID of the application might change if application is fully uninstalled and then reinstalled again.

I'd like to add one little clarification that wasn't mentioned here.
Although there can't be two apps with the same package name, there can be several launcher activities within one app that user can see in launcher app. Yes, as you noticed, standard "Maps" application ("com.google.android.apps.maps" package) has several launcher activities like "Local", "Navigation", "Maps". It doesn't matter for user if these "apps" (or activities, in developer terms) are implemented in one application package or not.
Activity name ("com.google.android.maps.MapsActivity", you can retrieve this string by rInfo.activityInfo.name) is not unique itself too, because anyone can create an app with unique package name and an activity located in java package com.google.android.maps called MapsActivity.
Thus, if you want to find unique identifier for all these launcher activities, you should use combination of both app package name ("com.google.android.apps.maps") and activity name ("com.google.android.maps.MapsActivity").

How to filter user installed application in Android?

I am creating a method to displays the installed applications in android. I gave the following lines of code to get the application list
PackageManager packageManager=this.getPackageManager();
List<PackageInfo> applist=packageManager.getInstalledPackages(0);
Iterator<PackageInfo> it=applist.iterator();
while(it.hasNext())
{
PackageInfo pk=(PackageInfo)it.next();
if(PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED==packageManager.checkPermission(Manifest.permission.INTERNET, pk.packageName)) //checking if the package is having INTERNET permission
{
//some processing
}
}
}
Here everything is working fine but the list includes the system packages too. I need to get only the list of user installed packages. Is there any way to do??
What flag should we set in getInstalledPackages() to get the user installed packages?

The ApplicationInfo object will have FLAG_SYSTEM if it is installed on the firmware, so you can use that to filter those out.