How to Install Incompatible Android Apps from Google Play Store

There has always been a craze for downloading the most top rated Apps on Android phones. Many of these apps are absolute free and easily available on Google Play Store. Due to such big benefit many users have turned to the Android world. Playing with those HD games is of much fun, but every good thing has its black side. Android too have them.

Android developers have needlessly restricted many apps and games to run on certain devices. However, they may run just fine on unsupported devices. Some apps are even in-compatible with the countries or lowest versions of Android.

Many low-end devices support lower screen resolution and hence users have trouble in installing the high resolution apps and games. While installing such apps a message ‘This app is not compatible with your device’ appears which ruins the entire mood.

The main reason behind this is the hardware configurations which are in plenty. This makes the developers difficult to decide the upcoming apps compatibility.

In case your device is in-compatible with a certain app, then that app will not at all appear in the search results of Google Play Store on your device. You can see that app on the Google Play website.

For overcoming this problem there are two methods:

1. Editing build.prop file.
2. Using Market Helper App.

Let’s see these methods in detail.

Method 1: Editing build.prop file

Pre-requisites:

• Your Device must be rooted.
• ES File Explorer or Root Manager must be installed.

Every Android device contains this build.prop file located in the system directory of their device. This file contains a few strings which are bits of text that helps to identify the device you’re using.

Just by editing this file you can make your device to appear as another device thus spoofing the Android market in recognizing the device you’re actually using.

• Firstly launch the ES File Explorer app and enable the mount file system option from the settings. Now navigate to the root directory.

Further follow the steps given:

Step 1: Go to /system/ directory on your device and locate the build.prop file.

Step 2: Long press on this file and select copy. Paste it in some folder of your SD card for safety.

Step 3: Again long press build.prop file–>select Open as–>select text–>then select the ES note editor application.

Step 4: Look for the ro.product.model and ro.product.manufacturer.

Step 5: Edit these lines to pretend your device is of other model. For example, to imitate to Nexus S, edit the lines as:

ro.product.model=Nexus S

ro.product.manufacturer=samsung

Step 6: Click menu button and select Save.

Step 7: Finally, navigate to Settings–>Applications–>Manage Applications–>All category–>select Google Play–>Clear data and cache.

Step 8: Restart your device.

Now you can download any app from Google Play Store that claim is in-compatible with your device.

Method 2: Using Market Helper App

Market Helper is another solution for downloading the in-compatible apps. This app does not consider the specific hardware configurations of your device. It gives the best results without even touching the build.prop file or any other from your system directory thus it’s much safer.

With this app you can spoof your current device as another one along with the region/carrier. All this can only happen if your device is rooted. This is most important as the app requires Superuser permissions for launching.

After launching the app, you’ll see various option for selecting device, carrier and account that you want to change to. Choose them and click on Activate.

The app will ask for Superuser permission. Click on Allow to grand the permission and continue.

The app will take few minutes to activate the new profile that you want. Now you can head on to Google Play Store and enjoy the app that were in-compatible earlier.

In case you want to switch back to normal mode, Select Restore from app and click Activate. If it doesn’t work, then just reboot the device with WiFi/3G enabled.

If you’re newer to Android, then I recommend you to follow the method II as method I is basically for advanced users who are more familiar with this stuff.

Download Market Helper