Android Tip - Launch Application by Package Name

One common way to launch an application is through its activity. However, what happens if you do not know the name of the activity?  So how do you launch an intent to launch the application?

 

In this case, you need to launch the application directly using its package name.

The following appIsInstalled() method checks if a package is already installed on the target device:

import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.Intent;

import android.content.pm.PackageManager;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.Menu;

import android.widget.Toast;

…

…

private boolean appIsInstalled(String packageName) {

    PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();

    boolean appInstalled = false;

    try {

        pm.getPackageInfo(packageName,

            PackageManager.GET_ACTIVITIES);

        appInstalled = true;

    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {

        appInstalled = false;

    }

    return appInstalled;               

}

To launch a package directly using its package name, you can use the getLaunchIntentForPackage() of the PackageManager class to create an intent for the app:

        String packageName =

            "net.learn2develop.barcodescanner";

        

        if (appIsInstalled(packageName)) {

            Intent i = getPackageManager().

                getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageName);

            startActivity(i);

        } else {

            Toast.makeText(this,

                "App not installed on the device.",

                Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

        }

Then, you launch the intent as usual using the startActivity() method.

Android Tip: Launching App Ops

In Android 4.3, Google has included an application known as App Ops. App Ops is an activity that allows users to enable/disable individual permissions of installed applications. Instead of granting a blanket of permissions during installation time, App Ops allows users to fine-tune the individual permission granted to applications.

At this moment, there is no way a user can directly go to the App Ops activity as it seems like Google is still fine-tuning the application (there are however, third-party apps on the Google Play that help you to do that – Permission Manager is a good example). However, if you are a developer, you can use the following intent to jump right into it:

startActivity(new Intent(

    "android.settings.APP_OPS_SETTINGS"));

This will launch the App Ops activity.