Installing Action Launcher 3 as a system app via ADB

action3_as_system_app.md

DISCLAIMER: Follow these instructions entirely at your own risk. I, nor my company (Digital Ashes PTY LTD) take any responsibility whatsoever for any damage done to any device/property that occurs as a result of following these instructions.

The following steps describe how to install Action Launcher 3 on a rooted device as a system app, so that you will be able to enable Action Launcher 3's Google Now integration.

Prerequisites

1. A rooted device (Google if you need help here).
2. A computer with ADB installed, and a working knowledge of ADB.
3. A copy of an Action Launcher 3 APK on your computer. APKMirror.com is a good place to grab a copy from. All you're doing here is setting Action 3 as a system app, so any version of the app will work. From there, the Action 3 will update via the Play Store like a typical pre-installed app (such as Gmail or YouTube).

Note: To follow the instructions below exactly, rename the APK to action3.apk. If you opt not to do this, just substitute action3.apk to your_filename.apk as appropriate in the instructions below.

Instructions

First, put the APK on the device:

adb push action3.apk /sdcard/

Now move the APK to the system partion. NOTE: The # blah blah items following the commands below are just comments for you to understand what's happening. Don't enter them in the shell.

adb shell
su
mount -o rw,remount /system                 # Remount to read-write so we can write to /system.
mv /sdcard/action3.apk /system/priv-app     # Move to the /system partion.
chmod 644 /system/priv-app/action3.apk      # All System-Apps need to have the permissions rw-r--r--.
mount -o ro,remount /system                 # Remount to read-only again.
exit 
exit

Finally, reboot the device:

adb reboot