Android market apps for PDN (Without hacking)

[arkangelhfb]

ATTENTION PDN USERS!!!

I think I just earned my “Haxer Badge of Brilliance” after haxer'ing the hell out of several systems resulting in me making the Internet, Android OS, android market, and PDN my *****...

Ok.., ok... but really people after 8 hours of beating my head against a wall, many failures, and a two day break to realize my failures had set me up for a huge bit of win, I found a work-around for the PND to get any and all apps from the android market... even if you don't have a sd-card and your PDN doesn't have access to the internet and all without touching your PDN from factory standard or using anything else but your PC to get what you want.

I'm now going to walk you through my epic adventure... and in doing so give you step by step instructions on how to do as I have... And how to unlock your PDN true potential.

Do Not Skip Ahead... Read Every Word... And Follow My Instructions.... There Are Five Steps... Each In Its Own Post... Read Each Step In Order... And Again... Follow My Instructions...

STEP 1: Getting your head into your PDN... then making it friends with your PC

This is a important step and is the easiest way to get files onto your PDN, IMO. For anyone who plugged there PDN into their computer with the provide USB cable, and tried to move files over to it... you will have notice that what the PDN shows your computer is not what your ES File Manager shows you... or at least... it's not very apparent that it is... This makes finding the files you moved impossible when looking in all the places you would think it should be... The search function of the PDN is also broken in this area and will not help you at all...

Here is the thing... when you plug in your PDN your computer, your computer simply sees the internal SD-card(not to be confused with the external SD-card slot that will display as empty or unconnected when your pdn is on). The internal SD-card is also where your music and default pics are stored, and where you can add new music too.(A good program for converting iTunes music to the format needed is Format factory.)

Anyway, to find files you placed onto your PDN from your PC, go to “ES File Manager” and start form just “/” not “/sdcard”. From “/” follow this path; “/system/media/sdcard”. You will not be looking at the files that your computer sees when connected to your PDN. Files and folders your computer sends to or creates on the PDN can be seen and used. Your computer can also delete files from this area... also note that most apk files run from this location will install and work fine without internet, and will then be listed in your app area and can be placed on your home page for easy use.

Now that you can get things on your PDN, it's time to get some fun stuff to put on there...

 

[arkangelhfb]

STEP 2: Know your goal and you have Options... Options... but Hell... I want the market...
Remember... APK files are what you are after... Keep this goal in mind... you WANT APK FILES... and the best place for those is the Market! But... There is no way for your PC to buy or download anything from the market. Ok from this point I could have stopped, forgot about the market and made due with the many many sites that hold apk apps that will run on the PDN device. In fact there are many fun apps that can be obtained without the market, but... the market is where most of the good apps are, and for that mater where most of the better updated versions of the good apps that you can find else where are.

Take Gameboid lite, which is by far one of the best game boy emulators out there... The versions you can get form the web are nice... but the version I'm running off the market is about 100% times better... the buttons are nice... transparent... and I even have A B and R-shoulder L-shoulder touch screen buttons on my screen... And many of the roms that fail on the other versions work very well on the one from the market.

So what was my goal... an APK file of the newest Gameboid Lite that could run game like golden sun without freezing up... This is how I got it...

 

[arkangelhfb]

STEP 3: Emulate the GameBoy... Emulate The Android... (warning the next steps take time...)

During my internet searches for the newer version of Gameboid Lite... I came across an interesting article about how to use your PC to test out apps you are making for Android... this is where I found another key to victory, although I didn't know it at the time. Believe it or not there are programs for your PC that will completely emulate an Android OS... and when run on your computer will in fact even be able to access the internet as if they where real devices, your mouse can even click on the Emulated Device's screen like it's a touch screen... in fact if you sign into your gmail account with the device it will even tell you if you have new mail. These Emulated devices however do not have the market on them, and do not really save apk files... but instead use an image file of an Android OS system to tell the emulator what programs the Device would be running. These Fake android devices also do not have the market app and it is impossible to transfer files from your computer to them or get files from them to your computer... meaning getting the market on them, or getting apk files off them is “next” to impossible... I say “next” to for a reason.

People, for the purpose of wanting to test out market apps, found a way to get the market on the “devices”. Once the market is on the Emulated device and you have a gmail account to long onto the market... you can get anything off the market you want onto the device. Problem is the device doesn't really save an APK file... as when you download it the Emulator is just taking a picture of what the device is and saving it as one large image file... again to me at first this was another brick wall... but it soon became an open door...

To get you started go here and follow the instruction...
How to Test Drive Google Android on Your PC Without Buying a Phone - How-To Geek

Once you have a working emulator running Android OS 1.6, that has internet access and can reach google.com with it's browser... go here and follow the instructions...
How To Enable the Android Market in the Google Android Emulator - How-To Geek

(As a side note... I found bringing the img file to a device that already had been used once, and had internet access... to be the trick to it... have the device running when you put the file into it's folder, then closing the device... and bringing it back up... also scaling the display size to 4 or 5 helped in the display size after clicking run on the device... these instruction will make sense once you have started the process.)

Once you have done this you should have an Emulated Android Device that is running Android OS 1.6 and has access to the Android market... Your Google account may also think you have a new phone... got a laugh out of this...

 

[arkangelhfb]

Step 4: We are going to need some Back Up... or at least to BackUp

Ok to put it simply... after step three is where I thought I had really been bested. The apps that I download didn't save anywhere I could get to them... and there was no way to get the apk files off the Emulated device as one, it wasn't a real device, and two, it was changing the files to not really be apk but just the big image file for the whole OS... I could even look through the device “/” because they don't have a app to do that... but wait did I just get the market...

After downloading the newest version of Gameboid Lite and getting it to work on the Emulated Android Device, I(and you should too...) went and found ASTRO, the free version and downloaded it. I was now able to look through the Emulated device's “/”. To my horror... “/system/media/sdcard” plain didn't exist...

Well I was back at step one... files on a Device... and no way at all to get to those files or do what I wanted with them... Finally I gave up... as the new programs downloaded simply do not make apk files anywhere on the Emulated Android Device... I tried grabbing an existing apk app I could find(a preloaded app that came with the emulator) and emailing it to myself. The email went through... but there was no attachment... phantom files... awesome...

Then with a flash of blind luck... I remembered something I read while browsing the internet on how to back APK file off of a phone or device(a rabbit hole I didn't have to go down, but might be useful for those of you that have other android devices) ... I thought for a moment that it wouldn't really matter but then an another thought hit me... just because the Emulated Android Device is doing weird things to the apk files that run apps... doesn't mean that the apps are being changed to stop there original functions...

ASTRO has a back up part of the application, one that writes apk backups, and while you cannot find the apps you download anywhere on the Emulated Android Device, run ASTRO – Hit menu on the Emulated Device's keyboard to bring up more options – Click Tools – Click Application manager/backup – and wow there are all the apps you have downloaded form the market and they have a nice little check mark by them for you to click if you want to back them up.

Click that mark then head to the top of the screen and click “BackUp”. ASTRO will copy the non apk file into apk files and place them in a non-existent internal SD-card. The path to your holy grail or clean usable apk files will be: /sdcard/backup/apps ...

 

[arkangelhfb]

Step 5: You have dropped some time into this... guess it's time for a Drop Box... or an In Box
Now that you are staring at your goal right in the face we have a new problem... how to get those ripe apk files from the Emulated hell and onto you pc.

Well here is where you have some options... click and hold down the mouse button, over the apk file you want, till a box pops up... from the list of options click send... you will be given a choice of programs that could receive the file... by default you will only have once choice, Gmail... but I had thought ahead...

I had already downloaded Drop Box. Since the emulated device has internet, Drop Box does sync up if you have Drop Box on your PC, meaning you get those lovely apk files off that emulator easy as pie... I would also like to point out that selecting gmail for these apk files found in /sdcard/backup/apps will also work at this point as the files will no longer ghost out on you... However Drop Box is a bit more clean and once you get Drop Box on your PDN(haven't got that far yet) you could in theory get files right from the emulated device to your PDN with it. Although getting to your computer first is the better way to go as it allows you to put the files where you want.( as in ether your internal sdcard, or onto an external sdcard)

This means the path for getting an app onto your PDN is as follows...

Android Market → Emulated Android Device → DropBox → Your PC → Your PDN's Internal SDcard (or) an External SDcard to be placed in your PDN.

I hope this help someone... if It does plz tell post so, as I'd love to know this helped...

God Bless:
Ark Angel HFB

TL : DR
Go read one of your ebooks... You really don't need the market, am I right?

 

[Mark Adams]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I honor the helpful spirit with which this is intended. But just flashing a modified FW that has Market included takes about 8 minutes, and you never have to hook up the PDN to the computer to program it again. It's cool that you can do this, and certainly useful in getting to know the device, but there really is an Easy Button for the PDN.

 

[feverhost]

arkangelhfb I appreciate your post, and i'm sure there will be people who will also be greatful of this. Thank you for posting!

 

[arkangelhfb]

yeah but will flashing the modified FW lose you any of the devices original apps?

I rather enjoy the Books already on the PDN, and honestly I like the barn and nobles app...

Another advantage to my method is that you cna test out the app on the emulator to make sure you like them, BEFORE junking up your PDN with an app that looked nice... but turned out to be crap...

 

[feverhost]

With some of the popular firmware, it will not delete your apps that came stock. I'm running "Mac's" version, and it kept all the stock apps.

 

[arkangelhfb]

With some of the popular firmware, it will not delete your apps that came stock. I'm running "Mac's" version, and it kept all the stock apps.

<_<... mind slipping me a link

 

[daspazz]

Please slip me a link as well!!

Nevermind! I got jiggy and bought me a BPDN and have it modded and am having =g such fun adding appz and stuff via the interwebz and coping files directly to the "spare" SDHC card I have. I am wondering about the ability to upgrade the internal card ot a 4gig or greater card and adding a 16gig i n the second slot.

Im glad i bought it even though I paid retail at BB.

It was almost someone else money so Im not sweating the cool learning experience. And now I have a droid reader that I can use to study for my CCENT and LIPC certs.

 

[flipoid]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I honor the helpful spirit with which this is intended. But just flashing a modified FW that has Market included takes about 8 minutes, and you never have to hook up the PDN to the computer to program it again. It's cool that you can do this, and certainly useful in getting to know the device, but there really is an Easy Button for the PDN.

I have a white Pandigital Novel running Android 2.0 (downloaded/installed from the official Pandigital website). What is the "easy" button to get the Android Market on my Novel, and also, how did "feverhost" get the Novel to run version 2.1? I would love that, because a lot of the apps I see (even on the "SlideMe" market that came loaded on my Novel) require at least 2.1 to run. One app that I would LOVE to have on my Novel is Words with Friends.

I am relatively computer-literate, but I am *not* a developer or anything like that; nor do I want to risk making my Novel unusable. Any help anyone is willing to provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much!

 

[cp50]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I honor the helpful spirit with which this is intended. But just flashing a modified FW that has Market included takes about 8 minutes, and you never have to hook up the PDN to the computer to program it again. It's cool that you can do this, and certainly useful in getting to know the device, but there really is an Easy Button for the PDN.

Do have instructions for flashing a modified FW (whatever that is)

 

[frivlus]

Arch,
Thank you for a very enlightening forum post. I appreciate the time end effort you went through to put it together. Like many, I have flashed a ROM or two, or three or four, but have always wanted to know the process of getting to the google market without modding a device.

My mother is perfectly happy with how her BPDN looks and feels. As with most of her generation, they are quite satisfied something once they get a firm handle on a thing and do not like change.

However, she occasionally will hear of or see a GOOGLE MARKET app on my fiance's Galaxy and want to give it a try. Flashing her BPDN would drive her nuts. Now I can give her GM apps, she's keeps her sanity and I get to live yet another day as "the son with the smart fiance." Why my fiance gets the credit is beyond me.

But kudos to you Archangel. The tutorial was perfect and spot on. I learned a lot and appreciate your work. I look forward to your future posts.

 

[messy0608]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I honor the helpful spirit with which this is intended. But just flashing a modified FW that has Market included takes about 8 minutes, and you never have to hook up the PDN to the computer to program it again. It's cool that you can do this, and certainly useful in getting to know the device, but there really is an Easy Button for the PDN.

Happen to have a link showing how to flash a modified FW that has Android Market included ? I dont really care about the other pre-loaded APPs installed on this device anyways. Pandigital Novel 7" Black..

Thanks for your time if you are able to help.