Android Market website now supports unofficial devices

Most Android devices ship with the Android Market installed, but those devices need to be officially approved by Google in order to support the Google experience, which means preloaded Market, and apps like Maps and so on. However, there are quite a number of devices that don’t ship with this official support, namely the recently released Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet. It is possible to sideload the Market onto those devices to download apps with it, but if you tried to use the Android Market website, your device will be unrecognized by it.

Well, it looks like things have changed because according to reports online, unsupported devices that have the Android Market installed are now detectable by the web version of the store. This means you’ll now be able to download and install apps via your web browser on your computer. However it’s worth noting that having the Android Market app on your device does screw up with your update notifications i.e. the Android Market detects updates for apps that weren’t installed with it, and when you try to update them it fails. However, the added convenience of being able to perform web installs is probably worth the hassle.

George Wong
Categories: Cellphones, Tablets
Tags: Android