Quick…how do you install apps on your smartphone or tablet? If you said “From the Google Play Store”, you are correct. Next question — “How do you easily install previously installed apps on a new phone?”
A bit tricker to answer, eh? Thankfully, it’s not a tricky riddle to solve. With the Android platform, you have numerous ways of installing apps. I want to illustrate two different ways to install apps you may not have known about. These “alternative” methods of app installation will save you a lot of time and effort.
Getting previously installed apps on a new device
The first method is installing apps from a previous device. Say you just purchased a new Android device and want to get some of the same apps onto the new smartphone or tablet, but don’t want to go through the process of searching them out on the Play Store. You’re in luck.
If you open the Play store on your device and then tap the overflow menu in the top-left corner, you see the My apps entry. tap that and then tap the All tab. From here you’ll see every app you’ve installed using your current Google account. Go through that list and install any and all apps you want on the device.
You can also remove apps from being listed in the My Apps tab by tapping the associated X.
Install apps through a laptop or desktop
The next method of installing apps makes use of your desktop (or laptop) web browser. If you log onto the Google Play Store from a web browser follow these steps to install apps to your device:
- Locate the app to install
- Click Install
- Select your device from the drop-down
- Click Install
The app will then be automatically sent to the device for installation. I like installing using this method, simply because I find it easier to search on a desktop or laptop.
These alternative methods for installing apps on your android device will save you precious time and effort in getting the apps you want on the devices you want.
