This tutorial is for getting the list of installed apps in your android devices. The information we reterive with the currently installed apps in a device using  PackageManager class. We will get the instance of this class by calling getPackageManager(), which provide the information on the application packages that are currently the part of device. Below the LoadApplication AsyncTask class implemented in a UI thread. We executing a progress dialog at onPreExecute method, in background we get the list of installed apps and loading that list to recycler view in onPostExecute.

private class LoadApplications extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
        private ProgressDialog progress = null;

 	@Override
        protected void onPreExecute() {
            progress = ProgressDialog.show(AppsList.this, null, "Loading application info...");
            super.onPreExecute();
        }

        @Override
        protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {

            applist = checkForLaunchIntent(packageManager.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_META_DATA));
            listadaptor = new ApplicationAdapter(AppsList.this, applist);

            return null;
        }

        @Override
        protected void onCancelled() {
            super.onCancelled();
        }

        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
            mRecyclerView.setAdapter(listadaptor);
            progress.dismiss();
            super.onPostExecute(result);
        }

        @Override
        protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {
            super.onProgressUpdate(values);
        }
    }

This list having application information to launch particular app. Using getLaunchIntentForPackage() method we can get the app having its launcher activity by getting its catagory tag inside intent-filter. It will return null if package name not found or having no launcher/main activity.

private List<ApplicationInfo> checkForLaunchIntent(List<ApplicationInfo> list) {
        ArrayList<ApplicationInfo> applist = new ArrayList<ApplicationInfo>();
        for (ApplicationInfo info : list) {
            try {
                if (packageManager.getLaunchIntentForPackage(info.packageName) != null) {
                    applist.add(info);
                }
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        return applist;
}