Yay! You just upgraded and received your new
Android device. Faster, sleeker, cooler. Emptier. Now you're
wondering, "How do i get all of my apps from my old phone to my
new phone?"
Sure, you have the new phone and have
inserted your SD card and (if applicable) your SIM card, but
where the hell are all of your apps? Oh don't worry, they're out
there in cyberspace somewhere, just waiting for you to come
rescue them.
A
couple of weeks ago, while out of town in Palm Springs,
California, my
HTC Thunderbolt 4G phone fried. The
battery
wouldn't hold a charge, it was flashing green/yellow,
green/yellow after trying to charge it. And the battery level
stayed right there at crappy. I visited a local Verizon store
near Palm Springs, told them my story and they gave me a new
battery. Great service, but the issue wasn't resolved. The same
thing happened with the new battery. The problem was obviously
with the phone, not the battery.
So, Verizon's great customer service informed
me that they would have a replacement phone delivered to me the
next day in Palm Springs. As promised the phone arrived and I
had it up and running in no time. Okay, in a little time, but
not a lot. Now I've got my new phone and I just have to wait
until all of my apps automatically load like they did when I got
a replacement Droid A-855 after I dropped my first device in the
toilet. Waiting! Waiting longer. Nothing happening. Not happy.
The first time I had an Android device
replaced, I turned on the replacement phone, loaded my Google
accounts so I could check my email and set it aside to eat
dinner. When I returned to my phone, all of my apps had
magically reappeared. How cool was that? So, I thought that is
what would happen with the Thunderbolt.
Nope.
Some of the threads I read addressing this
topic suggested AppBrain and Titanium (both apps available in
GooglePlay), while others stated that their apps also magically
appeared. Maybe mine wouldn't automatically reappear because I
have downloaded 42,744,220 apps and the robot was pissed at me.
Or maybe it's a specific phone issue (although some people with
HTC products said theirs just updated automatically). In any
event, here's how I resolved it without too many issues.
• Set up your Google account on your phone.
If you have multiple accounts, set them all up. If you don't,
you may find that some of your apps don't seem to be available.
• Use the browser on your phone (or on your
computer) to visit the Android Market (now GooglePlay) and click
on the My Apps button on the right of screen. This will display
all of the apps that you've ever downloaded. In my case that was
nearly 250 apps. I'm glad they didn't just automatically add all
of those to my new phone.
• Scroll through My Apps and click on the the
apps that you want to add to your new phone. The ones you had on
your previous phone will indicate that they're already
installed, even though they're not.
• When you click on the app you wish to
download, a pop-up will appear (see image). In the center of
that screen you will see "Choose another device on which to
install." If you added all of your accounts and visited the
GooglePlay area, the drop-down menu will show two phones
(perhaps identical phones if you just replaced your old one with
the same make and model). Choose the first one, then click
Install. If the app doesn't begin downloading to your phone, the
go through the same process but click on the second phone in the
drop-down.
Of course, if you backed everything up onto
your SD card, you may be able to re-load a lot of it directly
from there. I also strongly recommend using the Box app to save
everything up in the cloud (you can easily upload photos, apps,
music, etc. and access it from your Android device of your
desktop/laptop/tablet.
I managed to restore all of my important apps
(and realized I had many loaded that I never used), in pretty
short order while waiting for a flight in a Chicago airport. I
ended up re-loading about 50 apps and was very happy that I had
a 4G phone to make the process quick.
