Android has been out for a while.
You can grab APKs from the Web Browser. We can’t license Google Play for distribution at this time.
What do you want it to do?
I can make some improvements to Google Play, but need to check on the legal status of that first. In the interim, you can pretty much google ‘name of app’ + APK and download the application manually.
Sam
Having no experience of Android APK’s, I don’t know where to start to safely get APK’s or how they install - I know there are several sites that allow you to download APK’s but I’m not sure how safe they are to use - I’ve read that some are decidedly dodgy! I always get my iDevice apps from the Apple App store. I’ve looked on the internet & can’t figure out how (or where) I even get the Google Play APK & then install it.
At least initially, I just want to be able to download things like ITV hub, My5 & All 4, so that I can access all the basic UK TV stations (OSMC already has BBC iPlayer, so can live without that for now). Nothing fancy, just some basic channels to get me going.
A basic guide to get started would be useful.
Thanks,
Graham
I have now downloaded the Play Store apk file:
com.android.vending_7.1.12.I-all_0_PR_136123985-80711200_minAPI14(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
from apkmirror.com , changed security to allow software to be installed from unknown sources, & installed the apk from a USB drive, using the installer provided.
However, clicking the icon just briefly gets me a red border around the screen and nothing else (i.e. the app doesn’t launch).
Would appreciate any suggestions/ guidance please. Am I missing something important in the install?
Thanks,
Graham
You need the Google Play Services too.
But I don’t know how to get it.
As I already have seen it on Phones with Cyanogenmod, it it not an easy apk install.
I was sort of under that impression but there seems to be a plethora of versions available, depending on which version of Android you’re using, along with which processor you have. No idea which one I need!
That is correct. There is a Wiki article for Cyanogenmod users here: https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps. The issue is that because we are running Android from an SD card, entering recovery would not be able to install the update package properly.
I will see if I can come up with some instructions on how to install everything needed without getting in to distribution problems ourselves. In short: if someone knows how to use a Linux LiveCd or has a Linux system, they should be able to grab the 4.4 version and copy over the files in the ZIP to system. You would have to be careful with permissions however.
Sam
Thanks, Sam. What you describe is well beyond my skill set!
On 1 September, you said you had installed Google Play Services. Whilst that version has presumably been superseded, just knowing the Architecture, Minimum Version (2.3?) & DPI you used at APKMirror might be enough initially.
Graham
Downloaded & unzipped the file (twice - my Mac didn’t like it the first time around, so downloaded it again with a RPi) but it sounded so much simpler than it now seems, now I see what I get when I unzip it.
I think I’ll wait for the instructions.
Graham
Now installed Gapps. All I get is a new icon which, if clicked on, simply allows me to install it again. Not much help! No Google play store or any other Google app.
I had already (separately) installed Google Play (which doesn’t work) - could it be overriding the gapps version?
Any thoughts as to what I’ve done wrong?
So far, the Android side of the Vero 2 has been pretty disappointing, to say the least.
Graham
Hi Graham
I think Google Apps has been covered by @jim in the Vero 2 category. I’m going to have a guide / better solution on how to achieve this soon.
The key is to making sure you have the correct version of GApps
Sam
Hi Sam.
I used the version you suggested on 16 October - ARM, 4.4, Nano.
Sorry - not sure which posting(s) you’re referring to by @jim.
I’ll hang fire before I have another go at it - I’ve no experience of Android other than with a cheap tablet I bought ages ago (& then only as a basic user). My attempts thus far have been frustrating & so far, pretty fruitless.
Graham
Here is the topic (with a misguiding name) in which you’ll find what I did to install gapps.
I have responded on the ‘Howto Netflix/Android’ thread - only get so far before it fails on me.
Graham
You may not need Google app store on Vero2.
Thanks.
For now only interested in getting TV apps onto the Android side. Couldn’t find any I wanted on f-droid.
Have installed Ghost Commander on the Android tablet (a Tesco Hudl Version 1, which gets turned on about one a month or so - prefer my iPad!) & (I think!) copied some of the apps onto an SD card, which I assume I can then use to add stuff to the Vero.
Will try that tomorrow.
Tried it with mixed success.
I copied a selection of (mainly television) apk’s to a Micro SD card plugged into the Hudl, then copied them over to a USB drive that I know Android on the Vero2 can see (it also has my music library on it) using my Mac.
Youtube, Radioplayer and BBC iPlayer didn’t work. All4 & ITVHub did. I’m in the UK, so all these are relevant.
Unfortunately, I also installed Google Play Services, which gave me a pop-up wanting to report to Google that’s it had crashed. Unfortunately, this seems to control Google Settings.
So…
Installed Ghost Commander (GC) on the Vero2 (it took a few goes - it seemed reluctant & I kept getting the annoying pop-ups!). Used GC to delete Google Play Services (but not Google Store).
iPlayer now works (although the picture quality isn’t great). Youtube says it needs the Google Play Services app to work & Android offers to allow me to install it but, needless to say, this doesn’t happen.
Radioplayer complains the network isn’t working - even though it is. Not sure what it doesn’t like about my setup.
I haven’t tried to install or use anything else, such as games.
For me, this approach isn’t really the solution I’m looking for as the apps I want (such as Youtube & Radioplayer) don’t work after being installed this way. It also requires a three-stage approach by using my Android device & my Mac to get into onto a suitable media device that the Vero2 can work with.
That said, it’s better than nothing.
You should try reinstall Gapps on a fresh Android image.
I did a reinstall and the Google Play Store now works.
A summary of my solution, hopefully to make it easier for others:
Put the Android img file onto a SD card - I followed the instructions on the Raspberry Pi website, as used for installing Raspbian - this is easy to follow (mostly, just need to use the Android file name, not the Raspbian one they use) and allowed me to use my Mac to install the image & gives full cut & paste to the Mac terminal. Equally, the PC or Linux instructions would work just as well.
Followed the instructions by Jim on the ‘Howto Netflix/Android’ OSMC Forum page dated Nov 20, especially the paragraphs in the “GoogleApps installation is not really needed” (I didn’t see those when I was first looking). On my Windows PC (I used this, as there are issues with my user name on my Mac which makes it more complicated than it needs to be when connecting to user OSMC on the Vero), I used the BitviseSSH client app, which is available from www.putty.org (amongst other web sites). This allows easy file copying plus it has a terminal for doing the command-line instructions & meant I didn’t need to use the pscp command, nor did I need the line ‘ssh vero-ip’, as Bitvise already had me logged into Vero (OSMC). To ensure I had root access, I first did ‘sudo su’ at the command prompt BEFORE following the guide in detail.
Boot into Android & click on the Play Store icon. Needed to log in with my Google Account (had I not had one, I could have set one up). A bit of basic setting up the Store & I then could install some Apps from it.
Oddly, the Youtube apk I copied across from my tablet doesn’t work but I installed KODI from the Store & then installed the Youtube Kodi add-on, which works perfectly AND the picture quality seems to be HD. I haven’t (as yet) tried to install the Youtube app from the Google Store to see if that works OK.
I still have Ghost Commander installed, which I used to install a few of the apk’s from my tablet. Mixed results with the apk’s but may be another option for installing apps outside of the Google Play Store. I haven’t tried installing any games or other, non TV apps as yet, as I am, at this stage, just making sure I have a working system.
Hope the above helps.
Graham
You need Ghost Commander only to extract apks from an Android device.
As an alternative to Google Play Store, apkmirror should be safe if you trust the FAQ:
We make sure that the cryptographic signatures for new versions of all previously published apps match the original ones, which means we know if uploaded APKs were signed by the real devs or someone pretending to be them.