Get list of all installed apps

Question

I would like to get a list of all installed apps(NSArray). My app is a jailbreak app and is located in/Applications so Sandbox is no problem there. Is there any way to get a list of app store apps? I've already seen this in other apps (Activator, SBSettings...). I have no idea how to do this, because all of the apps sandboxes have that huge code, so i don't know how it would be possible to access the .app folder inside the sandbox.

Answer 1

You can use this code snippet:

 #import "InstalledAppReader.h"

static NSString* const installedAppListPath = @"/private/var/mobile/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installation.plist";

@interface InstalledAppReader()

-(NSArray *)installedApp;
-(NSMutableDictionary *)appDescriptionFromDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dictionary;

@end


@implementation InstalledAppReader

#pragma mark - Init
-(NSMutableArray *)desktopAppsFromDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dictionary
{
    NSMutableArray *desktopApps = [NSMutableArray array];

    for (NSString *appKey in dictionary)
    {
        [desktopApps addObject:appKey];
    }
    return desktopApps;
}

-(NSArray *)installedApp
{    
    BOOL isDir = NO;
    if([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath: installedAppListPath isDirectory: &isDir] && !isDir) 
    {
        NSMutableDictionary *cacheDict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile: installedAppListPath];
        NSDictionary *system = [cacheDict objectForKey: @"System"];
        NSMutableArray *installedApp = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray:[self desktopAppsFromDictionary:system]];

        NSDictionary *user = [cacheDict objectForKey: @"User"]; 
        [installedApp addObjectsFromArray:[self desktopAppsFromDictionary:user]];

        return installedApp;
    }

    DLOG(@"can not find installed app plist");
    return nil;
}

@end