Unique identifier for Android app

Question

What is the unique identifier for an Android app? Is this the name of the package? Can there be two applications with the same package names on the same device?

Answer 1

There are two different things: the Java package and the Android application package. The second must be unique.

There is a good article about it here.

Answer 2

Yes, the package name is a unique identifier for the Android application on the market.

No, there cannot be two applications with the same package name on the market / device.

Answer 3

I would like to add one small clarification that was not mentioned here.

Although there cannot be two applications with the same package name, in one application that the user can see in the application to launch, there can be several launch actions. For example, the standard Maps application (package com.google.android.apps.maps) has several launch operations, such as Local, Navigation, Maps. It does not matter for users whether these "applications" (or actions in terms of the developer) are implemented in one application package or not.

The name of the action ("com.google.android.maps.MapsActivity") is also not unique, since anyone can create an application with a unique package name and activity located in the java package com.google.android.maps called MapsActivity.

Thus, if you want to find a unique identifier for all these launch actions, you must use a combination of the application package name ("com.google.android.apps.maps") and the action name ("com.google.android.maps.MapsActivity" )

Answer 4

The package name must be different; you cannot download an application with the same package name as the existing one.

Answer 5

The unique identifier for Android applications is now the applicationId field in the build.gradle file. Devices will determine if the application is an update to an existing application or a new application based on this field.