How to get a list of installed android applications and pick one to run

Question

I asked a similar question to this earlier this week but I\'m still not understanding how to get a list of all installed applications and then pick one to run.

I\'v

Answer 1

I had a requirement to filter out the system apps which user do not really use(eg. "com.qualcomm.service", "update services", etc). Ultimately I added another condition to filter down the app list. I just checked whether the app has 'launcher intent'.

So, the resultant code looks like...

PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
        List apps = pm.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_GIDS);

        for (ApplicationInfo app : apps) {
            if(pm.getLaunchIntentForPackage(app.packageName) != null) {
                // apps with launcher intent
                if((app.flags & ApplicationInfo.FLAG_UPDATED_SYSTEM_APP) != 0) {
                    // updated system apps

                } else if ((app.flags & ApplicationInfo.FLAG_SYSTEM) != 0) {
                    // system apps

                } else {
                    // user installed apps

                }
                appsList.add(app);
            }

        }