The Ultimate Guide to Installing Incompatible Android Apps from Google Play

Android developers can restrict their apps to certain devices, countries, and minimum versions of Android. However, there are ways around these restrictions, allowing you to install apps marked as “not compatible with your device.”

Note that these tricks are all unsupported by Google. These tricks require fooling Google Play, and many require root. Some of these tricks may not work properly, as Google doesn’t want us doing these things.

 

Why Are Apps Incompatible?

Android developers can restrict their apps in a variety of ways:

·         Some apps are marked as only being compatible with certain phones or tablets. However, they may run just fine on unsupported devices.

·         Other apps are only allowed to be installed in certain countries. For example, you can’t install the Hulu Plus app outside the USA, and some online-banking apps are only available in the bank’s country.

·         All apps have a minimum version of Android they require. For example, Google’s Chrome browser requires Android 4.0 or higher.

Bear in mind that simply installing an incompatible app won’t necessarily make it work. Some apps may actually be incompatible with your device, while other apps (like Hulu) will only work when used within the US (or with a US VPN or DNS service like Tunlr.)

Note that you won’t see incompatible apps when searching via Google Play on your Android smartphone or tablet. They just won’t appear in the search results. You will see incompatible apps when searching on the Google Play website.

Bypass Device Restrictions

Android devices include a build.prop file that identifies the model of the device. if you have a rooted Android device, you can edit the build.prop file and make your device appear to be another device entirely. This will allow you to install apps that are marked as compatible with the other device.

Note that you’ll need to be rooted to use this trick. We have previously shown you how to easily root Nexus devices with WugFresh’s Nexus Root Toolkit. The process will be different for other devices.

We have already described how to edit your build.prop file manually, but there’s now an easier way. The new Market Helper app allows you to spoof another device without editing your build.prop file. It’s much easier, faster, and safer. (However, bear in mind that it also requires root.)

This app isn’t available in Google Play, so you’ll have to grab it from the developer’s website and sideload it. Once it’s installed, open the app and you’ll be able to spoof a popular device like a Samsung Galaxy S3 or a Nexus 7. You can then install apps compatible with that device. After you’re done, you can restart your device and it will appear to be itself again.

Bear in mind that apps marked as incompatible may actually be incompatible with your device, so some apps may not work properly after you install them.

Tricks for Installing Country-Restricted Apps

Some apps are only available in certain countries. If you have forgotten to install your bank’s app before travelling or you want to install a video or music-playing app that’s not available in your country, you may be able to fool Google into thinking your device is actually in another country.

We have used these tricks in the past to install US-only apps from outside the US. However, none of these tricks worked for us when we tried them while composing the article. It’s possible that Google is sure our account is outside the US because we have paid with a non-US payment method on Google Play. However, we have included these tips in the hopes that they may still work for some of you.

If you do manage to install a country-restricted app, it will become linked to your account, allowing you to install it on your other devices without requiring any tricks in the future.

Use a VPN to Install Country-Restricted Apps

You can use a VPN to fool Google into thinking your device is in another country. This may only work on devices without cellular connectivity, such as tablets, as Google may use the cellular network your device is on as its location.

Using a VPN doesn’t require root access.  We have previously shown you how to connect to VPNs on Android. If you need a free US or UK-based VPN, try installing the TunnelBear app. TunnelBear only gives you a certain amount of free data per month, but it should be more than enough to install a few apps.

Goodbye BIOS, Welcome UEFI

Your computer's basic input/output system (BIOS) is about to become history and be replaced by Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). Without compatibility problem, it has no pitfalls. 

When you turn on your system, a primitive system that dates back more than 30 years, the basic input/output system (BIOS), turns your cold hardware into a functioning system that your operating system can then boot from.
So, what's really going on here? Is UEFI just a way for Microsoft and its most loyal original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to keep Linux and other alternative operating systems out or is it more than that? To answer that question, let's have a look at what is UEFI.

What is UEFI
Hardware manufacturers knew that BIOS was obsolete even before the 21st century dawned. But, until recently they couldn't agree on how to replace it.
In 1998, Intel started work on the “Intel Boot Initiative” (IBI), later known as Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). While Apple, in its Intel-based Macs, and HP, with its Itanium 2 servers, used it, the other OEMs and, needless to say, Intel's rival chip vendors, weren't initially keen on adopting EFI. In 2007, Intel, along with AMD, AMI, Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Phoenix Technologies, finally agreed to use UEFI (the re-branded EFI) as the universal replacement for BIOS.  Even in a UEFI system there will still be a little bit of the BIOS in the firmware to enable UEFI itself to "boot" up.


The UEFI advantage
Don't mistake UEFI as being purely a BIOS replacement. It's not.
UEFI is a mini-operating system that sits on top of a computer's hardware and firmware. Instead of being stored in firmware, as is the BIOS, the UEFI code is stored in the /EFI/ directory in non-volatile memory. Thus, UEFI can be in NAND flash memory on the motherboard or it can reside on a hard drive, or even on a network share!


Even in a UEFI system there will still be a little bit of the BIOS in the firmware to enable UEFI itself to "boot" up.


The UEFI advantage
UEFI is a mini-operating system that sits on top of a computer's hardware and firmware. Instead of being stored in firmware, as is the BIOS, the UEFI code is stored in the /EFI/ directory in non-volatile memory. Thus, UEFI can be in NAND flash memory on the motherboard or it can reside on a hard drive, or even on a network share!
The UEFI advantage

Even in a UEFI system there will still be a little bit of the BIOS in the firmware to enable UEFI itself to "boot" up..UEFI uses the GUID (Globally Unique ID) Partition Table, both to replace the MBR and address partitions. With GUID, you'll be able to boot from hard disks as large as 9.4ZB (zetabytes). How big is that? Well, everything -- and I mean everything -- on the Internet is believed to be just over 3ZBs. I don't think we have to worry about UEFI not being able to manage any drive it's likely to run into anytime soon.

Can you imagine?! 30 years in the field of technology! Where things are changed within 30 seconds BIOS are surviving for 30 years! How can it be possible? Due to the compatibility problem this obsolete technology is surviving for a long time. Now it is time to change and upgrade. 

Hardware manufacturers are slowly replacing BIOS with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). That's all well and good, but one UEFI feature, Secure Boot, could be used to lock PCs into being only able to boot one operating system: Windows 8. 

If you've computer hardware business, you know that BIOS has been terribly back dated for decades. For example, a BIOS only has 1 MB of executable space. That means a BIOS has trouble to start up the multiple peripheral interfaces (USB, eSATA, ThunderBolt, etc.) devices, ports, and controllers on a modern Computer. Just as annoying, the BIOS was never meant to initialize more than a handful of devices so even if you can get all devices ready to go it will take up to 30 seconds after you turn the switch on before your PC is ready to start booting. 

The first thing you'll notice about UEFI systems is that they boot faster and you can have even larger primary drives. The BIOS is unable to boot from hard disks with more than 2.2 TB. That's a hard limit set in the Master Boot Record (MBR) that you can't fix. In the BIOS MBR, the maximum space for a drive is determined by the formula: 2 to the 32nd times 512 bits. This is an old hard drive addressing scheme. What it means in practice is that all but the most up-to-date computers can't boot with hard drives that are larger than 2.2TB. With 3TB drives now becoming common, OEMs have no choice but to move to UEFI on high-end PCs.