title: How to automatically start the android apk install process when user clicks a download link on an website
body: <p>According to <code>developer.android.com</code> </p>
  
  <p><a href="http://developer.android.com/tools/publishing/publishing_overview.html#publishing-website" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://developer.android.com/tools/publishing/publishing_overview.html#publishing-website</a></p>
  
  <pre><code>When users browse to the download link from their Android-powered 
  devices, the file is downloaded and Android system automatically 
  starts installing it on the device. However, the installation process 
  will start automatically only if the user has configured their 
  Settings to allow the installation of apps from unknown sources.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>it seems to be possible to automatically start the install process without the user interaction. I've checked the box to allow apps from unknown sources, but I still have to manually trigger the install process. I saw many posts on the same topic which seems to suggest the opposite of what is said on the official website:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7439684/how-to-install-apk-automatically-when-the-file-download-is-complete-hosted-on-p">How to install APK automatically when the file download is complete (hosted on private)</a></p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2643892/how-to-automatically-install-an-apk">how to automatically install an apk</a></p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9355082/how-to-automatically-launch-the-android-installer-after-downloading-the-apk">How to automatically launch the Android installer after downloading the apk?</a></p>
  
  <p>others seems to suggest that the only way to have the install process automatically happen is through an already installed app:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4967669/android-install-apk-programmatically">Android: install .apk programmatically</a></p>
  
  <p>The requirement that I have is that the user only need to click on one single link on a private deployment website, and the application installation would be triggered automatically without the user having to do anything else.</p>
  
  <p>Currently when I click on the link in my deployment website, all it does it downloads the apk file, I need to manually start the install process.</p>
  
  <p>None of those answers really gets me what I need, the instructions on the official website would be perfect since it doesn't require anything else, except I couldn't get it to work, installing another custom app to install the original app would also have the same problem when trying to install it.</p>
  
  <p>We are also deploying iOS apps for testing purposes internally, the way we are doing that is through the manifest file link</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://help.apple.com/iosdeployment-apps/mac/1.1/#app43ad871e" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://help.apple.com/iosdeployment-apps/mac/1.1/#app43ad871e</a></p>
  
  <p>sample link from the page:
  <code>&lt;a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&amp;url=http://example.com/ manifest.plist"&gt;Install App&lt;/a&gt;</code></p>
  
  <p>Are there some extra steps that I have to do to get the instructions on the official android website to work? Maybe there is a way to get the download link to behave like an iOS manifest file link? Or perhaps there are some other ways to achieve my requirements?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>