We showed off the new Android Market with the “update all” and “allow automatic updating” earlier, and we’ve been waiting for an app to come along to talk about this part. I finally was close to a computer when it happened and was able to document the process instead of just talking about it. It’s another of those nice touches that come along with Android 2.2, but this one has security and the safety of your information in mind. Follow the break to see a step-by-step in action.
When you get a notification that you have updates available in the Android Market and open it, if you have an application that’s blocked from auto-updating you’ll see the words “Update (manual)” in red. Applications are blocked from auto-updating whenever any of their permissions have changed, to ensure that you have a chance to see the apps new permissions and decide to install it or not. The pic below shows what I’m talking about:
If you hit the “Update all” button (and why wouldn’t you?) you’ll see a pop-up letting you know that you have an application with changed permissions, and instructions on how to proceed.
Hit OK and while any other apps are updating in the background you’ll be able to open the market page for the app in question.
Open the market page, and again you’ll see notice in red that a manual update is required. Hit the update button, and give permission to overwrite the old version with the new. You then get a chance to read the applications permissions again. Read these. Part of having an open system is paying attention to what you install — especially if you’ve rooted your phone.
The rest of the process is exactly what you’re used to. Froyo may not be perfect, but features like these are more than welcome and only make a great product even better. Now hurry Google, and push it out already!