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Preface: I understand most problems and many solutions associated with bundling multiple apps.

My current app relies on a secondary app in order to function correctly. My current method of installing this secondary app is to include its .apk file in the assets of the primary app and prompt the user to install it.

If the user has INSTALL_NON_MARKET_APPS disabled, then the primary app redirects the user to the helper app on the marketplace.

However, this process has a few problems:

  • Most users are forced to download apps two times from the marketplace, which is cumbersome.
  • I am forced to have a helper app that does nothing on its own on the market, which is most likely confusing to users who find it by searching the market.

Is there a better method of bundling two apps together and having the user install both at the same time? Alternatively, is there a method to create an unlisted app on the market, so that it can only be installed if the correct market uri is used?

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Jeff Gortmaker
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  • Why not simply combine the two apps? – CommonsWare Aug 17 '12 at 15:07
  • My app really does rely on having two separate apps. It's a parental control app that has two apps which prevent the other from being uninstalled without a parent's password. As far as I have figured out, this is impossible without having two apps that interact with each other. – Jeff Gortmaker Aug 17 '12 at 15:09
  • "this is impossible without having two apps that interact with each other" -- that isn't going to help much. First, that does not help with rebooting in safe mode. Second, the only way I can think of where having two apps would even have an impact on one being uninstalled relies on techniques that represent security flaws in Android that are slowly being closed off. – CommonsWare Aug 17 '12 at 15:38
  • Although the app does rely on possible security flaws, I have added many fail-safes to make sure that that app is perfectly manageable by the parent of the child who owns the phone. I'm not really looking to argue to necessity of multiple apps. – Jeff Gortmaker Aug 17 '12 at 15:50
  • Instead of two apps, you could register your app as Device Administrator? http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin.html – TomTasche Jan 24 '14 at 09:06

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Yes CLay there is one example of option one:

The android phone app is actually several applications bundle together..its accomplished by having each application as one big activity and using tab activity navigation.

However, I do not have access to your code tell you what security implications might occur bundling together that way as both applications bundled together will have the same security sandboxing settings you implement via android manifest an code,etc.

Fred Grott
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