Paid Apps Enabled: Review of MarketEnabler Android App
MarketEnabler for Android: Paid Applications for Everyone!
Android has many advantages as an affordable and powerful smartphone platform. Although not perfect yet, Google has committed itself to improving the user experience on a regular basis. The Android Market is probably the most obvious example of app development within Android. Many small annoyances have recently been taken care of and the Android Market finally has its online counterpart.
There is, however, the limitation of seeing paid applications in certain countries but not being able to buy them. This issue is only slowly being taken care of, so that many countries still cannot use the Android Market to purchase paid applications. For people living in any of these countries, there is a solution for this issue in the form of an application called ‘MarketEnabler’.
How Does MarketEnabler Work?
MarketEnabler is an application that helps you set the Android Market to think it is dealing with a handset located in one of the ‘paid app countries’. The app itself is not very advanced and shows three tabs, named ‘Actual’, ‘Settings List’ and ‘Set Custom’. The ‘Settings List’ tab is probably the most interesting for most users as it contains a list of providers from different countries that do have an agreement with Google to provide paid apps to their users. This is also where users will make their changes.
The ‘Actual’ tab shows the actual values of the current operator that you have selected to trick the Android Market. It is also here that your original settings can be restored. In the ‘Set Custom’ tab you can set the numeric value of your preferred provider if you happen to know their specific code. Whichever operator you chose, however, the results will always be that you now have access to paid applications.
How to Set a New Market Provider?
Using MarketEnabler is quite simple. There is one major prerequisite – the user must be rooted to use the application. In MarketEnabler the easiest method to quickly set a new provider is as follows:
- Open the MarketEnabler application and open the Settings List tab.
- Choose your provider of preference from the list and long press your selection.
- Choose ‘fake this provider now’ to instantly enable that the Android Market to show paid applications.
- You are all done!
The process stands out in its simplicity and MarketEnabler therefore is the easiest way to enable the purchase of paid applications in countries that by default do not allow this.
A Side Note to Using MarketEnabler
MarketEnabler is an excellent tool in what it does; enabling you to browse the full extent of the Android Market. It is important to note, however, that with choosing another provider you automatically cancel out the your own. This means that certain apps that may have been very specific to your country or region will not appear anymore. The localization extends to every aspect of the Market, which includes promoted applications that may have nothing to do with your country at all.
Apart from these small issues MarketEnabler is a great app for helping out those that are in need of paid applications in their Android Market.
Note. Be sure to also check out the Market Access application, which is a complete rewrite of MarketEnabler and using a similar service.
References
- MarketEnabler, https://code.google.com/p/market-enabler/
- All Screenshots by the author.
