Google plans to roll out a web interface for the Android Market that will let you discover new apps, and install them to your phone by clicking a single button. In advance of that feature, Google added the ability to push actions to your Android device as part of Android 2.2 Froyo. And while Google isn’t actually using that feature yet, third-party app store AppBrain is.
The company just launched a new tool called the Fast Web Installer. It works in conjunction with AppBrain App Market app on your mobile phone. Once you have Fast Web Installer installed on your Android 2.2 device phone, all you have to do is visit the AppBrain web site, click the install button next to any app, and it will automatically be downloaded to your phone. You don’t even have to pick up your phone once during the whole process.
Update: AppBrain reports that Fast Web Installer works on all versions of Android. You don’t need Froyo to push apps to your phone!
Removing apps still takes a little more work. You have to manually remove them from your phone using the official Android Market app, Android’s app manager (tucked away in the settings menu), or the AppBrain App market app. You can also use the AppBrain web site to send a message to your phone letting it know that you want to remove an app. But that requires you to then fire up the mobile AppBrain software, click the synchronize button, and then click the “perform installs” button.
I suppose it’s probably a good idea to jump through more hoops to remove an app than to install one, since you don’t want to accidentally delete an app that you’re using regularly. But as a reviewer who installs and uninstalls apps pretty frequently, I wouldn’t mind a way to remove apps from a desktop web browser.
It’s possible that AppBrain will become completely obsolete when Google finally gets around to rolling out its web-based Android Market. But at the rate at which these guys are innovating, I suspect they may continue to stay a few steps ahead of Google.
You can check out my hands-on video with AppBrain’s new Fast Web Installer after the break.
via Android Tapp
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