What does this app do?
APKMirror Installer is a helper app that lets you install .apkm app bundle files from apkmirror.com as well as regular APK files.
We've also added a highly requested bonus feature for regular APK files: if sideloading an APK fails and you want to know why, you can now see the exact failure reason by initiating the installation from APKMirror Installer.
Split APKs - huh?
In mid-2018 at Google I/O, Google announced a new dynamic app delivery format called App Bundles. We highly recommend reading this AndroidPolice post as the illustrations will make the concept a lot easier to understand.
Otherwise, here is a quick explainer. Before app bundles, developers either created a single "fat" APK with all the libraries and resources in them or manually managed multiple APK variants (for example, arm64 320dpi, x86 320dpi, arm64 640dpi, etc.).
The new App Bundles allow developers to transfer the burden of dealing with variants to Google, which then splits the app release into multiple chunks - hence the term split APKs. Each release then consists of a base APK and one or more APK splits.
For example, a single release may now arrive as 5 files: base.apk + arm64.split.apk + 320dpi.split.apk + en-us.lang.split.apk + es-es.lang.split.apk.
Unfortunately, you can't install all these APK splits by just tapping them on your device - you can only install the base APK, which will then crash due to missing resources.
This is where APKMirror Installer comes in.
Alright, so what are these .apkm files?
As many apps are migrating to the split APK format that cannot be easily shared and installed without a companion app, APKMirror has developed a solution to adapt to these changes and continue to allow easy and safe sideloading options.
Each .apkm file is comprised of a base APK and a number of split APKs. Once you've installed APKMirror Installer and downloaded the .apkm file you'd like to install, simply tap on it or use APKMirror Installer to find the download location. You will be able to see the exact contents of each .apkm file and select only the splits you want to install to save space on your device.
APKMirror Installer and the underlying apkmirror.com infrastructure took many months to develop at a considerable cost, so we hope you understand why the app and site are ad-supported. For those who prefer to avoid in-app ads, there are various subscription options to go ad-free and unlock additional features.
Please report any issues to our Github bug tracker.
Note: This app is a file manager utility and does not have any direct app store features, such as browsing apkmirror.com or updating applications directly from the site, as that would be against the Play Store ToS.ZWIŃ
NOWOŚCI
Initial release!
New:
- If sideloading a regular APK fails and you want to know why, you can now install it using APKMirror Installer and see the exact failure reason.
- Whoops: subscriptions were auto-refunding after 3 days because we apparently needed to acknowledge them from within the app, and we didn't. We lost our initial subscribers - hopefully they'll forgive us and consider subscribing again.
- APK installation showed "Failure" in some cases, but no longer.
- Other fixes.ZWIŃ
