Installing standalone applications (like Quickoffice) on a restricted Android device

The Android 1.5 (and now 2.1!) image on my Motorola Backflip came bundled with a "view only" crippled version of Quickoffice. This was OK until a few weeks ago, when I was away from my laptop and needed to edit a spreadsheet. I searched for a Quickoffice update in the Android Market. No dice. I visited the Quickoffice website, read the install instructions for Android, and quickly found that my phone doesn't have an option to enable web-downloadable app installation outside of Android Market.

A few moments later, a light bulb turns on. I've been doing some tinkering with Android app development. The Android SDK provides a way to install my apps on my device. It should also allow 3rd party apps to be installed, right? A quick purchase of the full version of Quickoffice (downloading to my PC), a few keystrokes on the command line, and I'm editing Excel documents on my phone. Cool. It's pretty easy, even if you don't carry the nerd gene and/or have any intention of using the SDK for app development.

Here's what you need to do:

1. If you don't have Java JDK version 1.6, download it from Oracle. There is a JRE and JDK, make sure you get the JDK. Install the JDK. If you don't have the JDK installed, the Android SDK installer for Windows will complain.
   
2. Download the Android SDK from Google. The current version as of this post is r09. There is a version for Linux, Mac, and Windows. If you are on Windows, I recommend using the Windows installer version. Install the Android SDK. I installed to C:\Android\android-sdk-windows
   
3. If you are using Windows, download a USB driver for your device. This driver lets you connect to the device in "debug mode". Depending on your device, it may be tricky to find a driver. Google has a pretty good list of links to OEM USB drivers for various manufacturers. Install the USB Driver for your device. You may need to reboot.
   
4. Switch your device into debug mode. On my device it is through "Settings" -> "Applications" -> "Development" and then I click the checkbox next to "USB Debugging".
   
5. Using a USB cable with data capabilities (some cables are "charge only"), connect your device to your computer. If you can connect your phone as a removable storage device, your cable is a data cable. If you are using Windows you may see new hardware being detected and installed. You may need to reboot, again...
   
6. Assuming you are using Windows, open a command prompt (Run... "cmd.exe") and change to the "tools" directory of the Android SDK. (cd C:\Android\android-sdk-windows\tools).
7. Run "adb devices" to see a list of devices. You should see your device listed, although the name may be cryptic. For example, my Backflip shows up as device ID ~TA538XXXQ.
8. Download whatever Android app you'd like to install and save it to a directory on your PC. For example, I downloaded Quickoffice and saved it as C:\Android\qoandroid_3_3_102_QO.apk.
9. Run "adb install C:\Android\qoandroid_3_3_102_QO.apk" to install the application.

That's all there is to it. If your version of Android contains a canned version of Quickoffice, like Android on the Backflip, you'll be stuck with two versions. I just ended up creating a link to the new version on the "desktop" of my phone.