Android Market Blues – Are Carrier App Restrictions Beating You Down?

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Posted By: Gear Diary Staff

Android Market Blues - Are Carrier App Restrictions Beating You Down?

Ah… Android. The allure of a completely open system. You’re in control, unlike on iOS devices. Right? Right? Sometimes, not so much. Turns out, AT&T Android-touting users, for example, can only install applications in the Android Market.

Recently, Travis asked about installing non-Market applications on an AT&T Android smartphone, and Francis told him a few possible ways to do this. It’s definitely a source of frustration for users on carriers with such restrictions. Removing a standard feature of Android is simply an annoyance to users, and can be circumvented, as the Tested.com article How To Install Apps that are Filtered Out of Your Android Market App points out.

Some Android users are familiar with using AppBrain App Market for application discovery and web-based application installation, but the aforementioned article goes into more depth on other methods. This article is worth reading and bookmarking if you’re an Android user and having issues with non-Market application installation.

How To Install Apps that are Filtered Out of Your Android Market App (tested.com), via Lifehacker

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About the Author

Gear Diary Staff
Gear Diary was founded on September 30, 2006, with the goal to create a website that would not easily be labeled. Everyone who is part of Gear Diary is a professional who uses technology in their work and daily lives. On this site, we share our enthusiasm while exploring the gear we use — the equipment that makes our lives easier, more entertaining, more productive, and more manageable. Our hope is that Gear Diary visitors find this site to be a welcoming, friendly, and accessible place to learn about and discuss interesting topics — and not only those that are tech-related! Gear Diary is a place to discover and explore all kinds of new gear, including smartphones, computers, kitchen gadgets, Toys, EDC, camping gear, or even your next new car! You can follow us on Twitter @GearDiarySite.

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3 Comments on "Android Market Blues – Are Carrier App Restrictions Beating You Down?"

  1. Michael Anderson | October 25, 2010 at 1:46 pm |

    Great article Thomas … and a real annoyance to me as an Android user. So far I have been very happy with my Droid on Verizon, but in reality I know that while the Google Android OS is pretty ‘open’, the hardware and particularly carriers want to get you back to their nice walled gardens and charge you $4 for a 30 second ringtone …

  2. Thomas R. Hall | October 25, 2010 at 6:34 pm |

    Android Market Blues – Are Carrier App Restrictions Beating You Down? « Gear Diary http://bit.ly/aWRoaq

  3. The LED man. | March 2, 2011 at 5:43 pm |

    Its not surprising that AT&T is doing that with the android. Heck they had a monopoly on the Iphones for the longest time being the only carrier why would they loosen up for android phones.

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