Your account and devices

Navigating the Market and Searching

Buying and installing apps

We've been waiting for Google to rollout the Android Market Web Store for a long time. Now that it has finally gone live, the time has come to adjust to a new way of finding and installing apps. In this case, the new way is shaping up to be dramatically improved. Google has leveraged the power of their cloud infrastructure to make your phone feel totally integrated with the web-based Market.Once you hit the new Android Market site, log in with the primary Gmail account on your phone. All your apps are associated with a certain account, so you need to use that one to check the Market. Next, click the My Market Account link at the top of the page. Here you can see how completely your phone is already linked with the Market. Your list of orders is very useful for finding the product page for anything you've ever downloaded on an Android phone. Seriously, it has records of every app you have ever installed, but just the first time. Apps that you've reinstalled don't show up again.Click the Edit button by your phone's entry, and choose a nickname. This is what will show up in the Market when you are choosing apps to send to the phone. If you have more than one device, this is especially important. You can also choose to hide devices that are on your list that you don't use anymore.The details page for each app offers you all the information you could need. At the top is the app name/icon, install/buy button, and the large splash graphic. You can check out the description, reviews, recent changes, and permissions in the various tabs just below this. Your own reviews can be posted from this interface too. On the left side, all the apps from the same dev are shown, and related apps are below that. Screens are just below the description, and if the developer has included a YouTube link, that will be below the screens. Unfortunately, this does not play in the Market, but will open a new YouTube video tab. You can also tweet out direct links to the app that will work on the PC and the phone.If you want to search for an app, there is a persistent search bar at the top of the page. On the results page, there is a Search Options dropdown. Here, you can sort by price, device compatibility, and relevance/popularity. We really like that the search shows you all the apps, even if you can't install them. It makes it easy to check out the app's info page to find out why. That's one of the things that bothers us about the mobile version of the Market. Some apps don't show up, and since they are totally hidden from your phone, you can't figure out what's going on. If you're not interested in tracking down a missing app, then you can set the device compatibility filter.This is where we've occasionally hit a snag. Sometimes, the second dialog box for buying apps won't show up. This happened in the Google presentation too, so we assume they are aware of it and will fix it soon. If this happens to you, just reload the page and try again.When your order is complete, a notification on your phone will indicate the app is downloading and installing. For us, the download is starting almost instantly. If you have Background Data turned off, this will not work. You can also install apps with the small button next to the app icons in the featured pages, or search results.You may notice sometimes that your phone is grayed out in the installation popup. This is a helpful reminder that the app in question is not compatible with your phone. If you hover over your device in the dropdown, a box will appear with an explanation as to why you cannot install it. For example, some apps are carrier specific. If you search for Skype, you get the regular Skype, and you also get Skype mobile for Verizon. If your phone is not on Verizon, the reason given in the popup is "This item is not available on your carrier." Again, we're happy that the web store lets us see these apps, and explains what's going on. It is much better than apps just not showing up.