[How-To] Use the Amazon Appstore with the Sideload Wonder Machine

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

It's possible to use the SWM to sideload apps from the Amazon app store, but it's not easy or straightforward. This tutorial should get you started, and we all hope that AT&T and Amazon can get their collective stuff together and fix it the right way.

Tools you'll need:
A Dropbox account.
The Dropbox Windows client
The Android Dropbox client
An Android file explorer. Astro is free, and is what I'm using in this tutorial, but others may work.

Step One:
Sign up for a Dropbox account. Use the link above so we both get more space
Download and install the Dropbox Windows client.
Open the Dropbox program on your PC, and make a folder named "Amazon"
Install the Android Dropbox client, and sign in.
Open the Android Dropbox client, and verify that you see the Amazon folder.
Install Astro (or other file manager) and play with it a few minutes to learn how to navigate.

Step Two:
Open the Amazon app store on your Android phone, and choose the file you want to install.

When you see the Amazon app store launch the Android installer, DO NOT press install. Instead, hit the Home button to push it to the background.

Step Three
On your phone, open the Dropbox application, and make sure you're in the Amazon folder. Press the "menu" button on your phone, then the "Upload" button that pops up in the Dropbox app.

A new dialog box will open. Choose "Any File", then another new dialog will open. Choose "Astro" from this one.

Astro will open. You need to navigate to the following folder on your SD card:

/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache

In this folder will be the .apk file you just downloaded. There may be other files in this folder, so look at the date and time to determine which one you just downloaded from the Amazon app store. Yes, the naming convention is very unfriendly, but we can't do anything about that. Long press on the correct file, and it will upload to your Dropbox in the "Amazon" folder.

Step Four
On your computer, you can open your Dropbox folder, open the Amazon folder, and the .apk file will be there. Use the SWM to install this .apk the normal way.

Once you're finished installing your app, you can delete the original .apk file in
/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache. You should also manually close the Amazon app store and Android Installer app through the Manage Applications settings, or just reboot your phone. I hope this helps someone.

 

[darkonii]

Hi,
Thank you for the information. I want to try it out but the link to swm http://forum.androidcentral.com/and...40770-ac-sideload-wonder-machine-windows.html doesn't work and I can't get the loader.bat to work either. Can you please tell me another site to download it, even an older version would be fine. Thank you much.

New adroid phone user.

 

[Dnorwood]

Isn't it just as easy to copy the .apk from the cache on the phone through the usb and then install using SWM? I have had a lot of success using this method.

 

[duping812]

thanks for the instruction. I just got appstore installed on my atrix. But there is a typo needed to correct: the first appstore apk is in this folder
/mnt/sdcard/download/Amazon_Appstore-release.apk

while the following apps downloaded from appstore will be here
/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache/

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

thanks for the instruction. I just got appstore installed on my atrix. But there is a typo needed to correct: the first appstore apk is in this folder
/mnt/sdcard/download/Amazon_Appstore-release.apk

while the following apps downloaded from appstore will be here
/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache/

Yes, this thread is for people who have installed the Amazon app store but are having difficulties loading the apps. The Amazon app store itself will install like any other application via the SWM

 

[JRBaker42420]

Install Failed Insufficient Storage

Ref: Problem on Samsung Captivate (AT&T)
OS: Android 2.2 (Froyo)

Somehow I managed to use the Sideload Wonder Machine application and successfully installed the Amazon Appstore, and then successfully installed Angry Birds Rio.

Now I am trying to install an update to the Appstore. Every time I try, I get an error message, as follows:

Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE]

I cleared my browser cache and have the default storage location set to 'Memory card'.

Personal data is 14.85MB/127MB. There is plenty of space on both the internal and external SD cards.

Do you have any suggestions on what to try?

Thanks!

 

[jp47]

I used sideload to install amazon appstore.apk to my phone from my pc. i simply moved it from the download folder on my atrix 4g to my laptop where i had installed androidcentral's sideload..i then used sideload to install to my phone where i have been getting free apps from amazon every day. they strore them under a folder
'Android/data/com.amazon.venezia/cache'. I havn't figured their naming scheme but they are any files found there with a '.apk' extension. Just pick those newly downloaded to be loaded. It's really pretty easy. A sample file name is: vnz46288.apk...

Yes but you can use the method i described, download the Amazon app to your phone (ignore the security update) and then use sideload to install those app by copying them to a pc and using sideload to install them. It works great. The updates are trickier.

 

[JoshuaExline]

I am trying this method to get the free deal on Tweetcaster Pro today...and it's not working.

Help?

 

[erwaso]

Ref: Problem on Samsung Captivate (AT&T)
OS: Android 2.2 (Froyo)

Somehow I managed to use the Sideload Wonder Machine application and successfully installed the Amazon Appstore, and then successfully installed Angry Birds Rio.

Now I am trying to install an update to the Appstore. Every time I try, I get an error message, as follows:

Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE]

I cleared my browser cache and have the default storage location set to 'Memory card'.

Personal data is 14.85MB/127MB. There is plenty of space on both the internal and external SD cards.

Do you have any suggestions on what to try?

Thanks!

i get the same message. it keeps trying to save the files to INTERNAL MEMORY and cant get it to save to sd card .... any solutions?

 

[elugoruiz]

nvm solved it