Android Market App Update

The latest Android Market App v3.3.11 brings some nice features. The most important and contentious one is the 'auto-update' feature. It used to be that you could check the 'Auto Update' box for each application but with this new feature it is possible to set all apps to Auto Update.

Some people like it, others do not. Personally, I like to look at the feature set before updating apps, so I do not set any app to auto-update. That being said, if you are in the camp who likes to keep current no matter what choosing Wi-Fi only Auto Update seems like a no-brainer.

Right now, Market app is not showing up as an update but as noted by Android Police, it's possible to download the .apk (Android  Application Package) and install it manually, if you have the right tools.

Even if you are not a developer you might want to install Android SDK and take a look at the command line tools like "adb" (Android Debug Bridge), which you can also use to generate bug reports (after installing SDK, simply go to "Android-SDK\Platform Tools" folder" under Android folder and type 'adb' to get full command line options).

There are several links to where you can download the new Market app .apk that you can find by googling. After you install SDK and download the new Market app package, you can use the 'adb' tool to install it as shown below:


C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb install -r c:\users\adil\downloads\Market-3.3.11.apk
5428 KB/s (3296645 bytes in 0.593s)
        pkg: /data/local/tmp/Market-3.3.11.apk
Success

Of course you will have to change C:\users\Adil\Downloads\Market-3.3.11.apk with the path to the .apk you downloaded.

It's important to use "-r" as you will already have Market app installed, and you would like to 'override' it. Help for the install command is as follows:


adb install [-l] [-r] [-s] <file> - push this package file to the device and install it
                               ('-l' means forward-lock the app)
                               ('-r' means reinstall the app, keeping its data)
                               ('-s' means install on SD card instead of internal storage)

This update also makes switching google accounts easier, if you have several (as I do). It's built right into the tool. Enjoy!