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've tried:

Intent intent = new Intent(ACTION_MAIN);
intent.addCategory(CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);

and this only shows application that are preinstalled or can run the ACTION_MAIN Intent type.

I also know I can use PackageManager to get all the installed applications, but how do I use this to run a specific application?

Answer 1

Here's a cleaner way using the PackageManager

final PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
//get a list of installed apps.
List<ApplicationInfo> packages = pm.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);

for (ApplicationInfo packageInfo : packages) {
    Log.d(TAG, "Installed package :" + packageInfo.packageName);
    Log.d(TAG, "Source dir : " + packageInfo.sourceDir);
    Log.d(TAG, "Launch Activity :" + pm.getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageInfo.packageName)); 
}
// the getLaunchIntentForPackage returns an intent that you can use with startActivity() 

More info here http://qtcstation.com/2011/02/how-to-launch-another-app-from-your-app/