ShiftyBloke.net

So you downloaded some kewl apps onto your G1 and now you gonna flash your phone to get r00t but don’t want to spend time re-downloading apps from Market? Or some sneaky developer is now charging for a previously free app? Well, I have good news for you! You download the apk files to your pc to install later.

**NOTE**:
This won’t save your preferences, just the install file. Also, if you end up screwing up your phone, don’t blame me, kthx.

Pretty simple method:

1) Grab the SDK and extract it, you need adb: Download it here
2) Install the USB driver and keep the phone connected.
3) On the phone, open the app you want to save the apk for.
4) Open up shell/command prompt, cd to the sdk/tools folder.
5) Find the app package name. Run ‘adb -d logcat’ (or ‘adb -d logcat > somefile.txt’ if you prefer to get the info from a file). You can also use ‘adb -d shell top > file.txt’ and then leave it for about 10 seconds before stopping it (ctrl+c))
6) Look for something like: “Displayed Activity: com.some.package/.some.file: 100ms” The important part is “com.some.package”. If you used ‘adb -d shell top > file.txt’, look for the package names of running apps and see which one is likely to be the one you want.
7) Run ‘adb -d pull /data/app/com.some.package.apk savedFile.apk’.

Congrats, savedFile.apk is your market app, saved for later installs.

To install it, use ‘adb -d install /path/to/apk’

Example with Bubble app on the market (Click for larger):