Introducing the new Uptodown app for Android

It’s a great day at Uptodown: we’re celebrating the first public version of our first official app for Android. We’ve had an app for a while now, but it was simply a webview that showed our site. We’ve been working long and hard to be able to present the native version of our app store, a proper alternative to Google Play that lets you search, download, install, and update apps from our marketplace legally, smoothly, and securely.

As usual, Google Play doesn’t have this app, or at least the full version, as the tech giant’s policies don’t let us distribute apps inside its own app store. But go ahead and download it here on our site (make sure you’ve already activated the option to download apps from unknown origins on your device). If you’ve already got an earlier version, just update to version 3.12.

What’s new in the app? 

At the aesthetic level you’ll find lots of changes. Both the app pages and main menu have gotten a small facelift and better transitions, plus higher-res icons whenever possible. There’s a new bar to browse between the different sections, plus floating buttons that make searching and downloading files either when you’re scrolling down the screen. Everything feels more organic, annoying as that phrase sounds after so much overuse.

But now let’s look at what’s really interesting – the functions. We’ve refined the features that were available in the previous version, though now the two main features are much more precise and accessible:

• The auto-update system automatically detects, downloads, and installs the new versions of every app you download through Uptodown, plus sends notifications of each action and groups them if there are several. Likewise, it only installs apps whose required version is appropriate for your device. If you want to try your luck with apps without official support all you have to do is download it from the website as usual.
• Installing previous versions of an app is easier than ever. Uptodown detects which apps you have installed on your device as well as all prior ones available on our marketplace, saving you the hassle of doing searches and version checks.
• Our catalogue remains open and restriction-free, in lots of cases distributing betas, unreleased versions, and soft launches with no geographical restrictions. We’ve nearly hit 4 million APKs on our servers, including previously available or withdrawn versions, grouped into more than 150,000 catalogue entries. And counting.

For the rest, we’re still offering the same service as ever: a catalogue with thousands of pre-scanned apps run through more than 50 different antiviruses thanks to our collaboration with Virustotal. Plus the apps go through a human filter in the analysis, as we write our own descriptions and add multimedia content. Quality over quantity, though we continue to add automated mechanisms to get all the latest features and updates as soon as possible.

By way of illustration, we’re linking to the exhaustive videoanalysis (in Spanish) of our new app made by our friends over at Androidsis.

Though we’ve released our first “mature” version, we’ll keep working on the app to add new features and make changes based on your comments. What else do you want to see in the app? Tell us in the comments!