Searching applications without launching Market

Question

Here is what I want to develop

Let's say there is an application called 'A'. When 'A' is running, 'A' checks if it is available on the Market. If it is in the Market, 'A' launches Market and is redirected to the market detail page. If it is not in the market, 'A' keeps running without launching the Market

I know an application can launch/search Market by sending ACTION_VIEW Intent. But what I want to do is to get if an application exists on the market or not without launching the market. Is it possible?

Answer 1

Since there is no official Android market API, then there is no official way to do this. I know that there is an unofficial API that has been created, which may or may not have the features you are looking for. See this post for details.