How do I find out from Xamarin if a specific App is installed in Android?

Question

In Xamarin Android, I use implicit intents to load another app. This can be the browser or whatever. If I want to load i.e. a Facebook link, the OS allows me to choose to use a browser or specifically the Facebook App. This is also the case for a few other links where the page owners have produced an app.

Is there a way to find out if a specific app, say the Stack Overflow app, is installed on the current mobile device?

Answer 1

Yep, here's a Xamarin/C# function that will tell you if a specific app (via its package name) is installed:

public bool IsAppInstalled(string packageName) {
    try {
        PackageManager.GetPackageInfo(packageName, PackageInfoFlags.Activities);
        return true;
    }
    catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException ex) {
        return false;
    }
}

Example call:

bool bIsAppInstalled = IsAppInstalled("com.theirdomain.someapp");