Can I delete .apk files after installing app on my android phone [closed]

Question

A considerable amount of space is used up by .apk files on my phone with apps which cannot be moved to the sdcard (Adobe Flash and Google Maps). In those directories, there are .apk files. Can I delete these to save space and have the application work as it did before?

Answer 1

Consider the APK file as a JAR file, and the act of installing an app to the phone as you adding that jar to your resources library in Eclipse.

The installation is the "link"... reading the manifest, building intents, adding your widgets to the widget list, your app to the app list etc. You still need the APK file, as this contains your executable binaries. If you delete the APK file, your app disappears!

I hope this helps explain the concept :)

Sam