Exploring Samsung Apps on Your Samsung Galaxy Tab
- Hot List / New Apps Listing / View the App Description / Download and Then Launch the App
- View Apps in Categories
- Search / Settings / Final Thoughts
If you have a Galaxy Tab running Android 3 (better known as Honeycomb), the Android Market isn’t your only resource for finding apps for the Tab. Samsung installs the Samsung Apps app with every Tab running Honeycomb so you can find apps that are specifically designed and optimized for the Tab.
Hot List
When you open the Apps screen, you’ll see Samsung Apps in your apps list. As with the Android Market, you’ll need to have an Internet connection through your carrier or Wi-Fi active so you can access the Samsung Apps market. After you launch Samsung Apps and answer any questions that the app asks you, such as what country you’re in, you’ll see the app with what Samsung Apps considers “hot” in their Hot list. I suppose it’s no surprise that Angry Birds is a part of this list (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 The Hot list of apps.
New Apps Listing
You can see a new list of apps since the last time you visited Samsung Apps by tapping New. Each app in the list has an average rating based on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) starts. If there are no reviews, then all the stars are grayed out. You’ll also see what the app costs. When you get to the end of the list, you’ll see a More link. Tap this link to view more apps in the list (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 The More link in the New list.
View the App Description
Whenever you’re in the Hot or New list, you’ll see some advertisements for apps on the right side of the screen. You can tap on one of these ads to view the app page with more information and a link to download the app just as you would with any app in the list. When you tap on an app (or an ad), you’ll be taken to the app description page as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 An app description page.
The left side of the window contains information about the app as well as links to the developer’s social networking sites and a button so you can get the app. The right side of the screen contains information, screenshots, any information about what customers also bought, and any comments made by users of the app (past or present).
Download and Then Launch the App
Tap Get to download the app as you would with any app in the Android Market. If you have to pay for the app, Samsung Apps will take you through the process of payment, though I wasn’t able to find any paid apps at all so I could verify what that process is exactly. After you tap Get, the Galaxy Tab will download and install the app on your Tab. When the installation process is complete, you can launch the app by tapping Launch (see Figure 4).
Figure 4 Tap Launch to open your new app.
You’ll also find your downloaded app in the Apps list.