Surfacing visual representations of universal applications

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving, at a computing device, authentication credentials to sign in to a user account, the user account managed by an account manager that tracks universal applications that are installed at the computing device and at one or more additional devices that are also associated with the user account;
• responsive to signing in to the user account, communicating with the account manager to determine the tracked universal applications;
• surfacing, at the computing device, visual representations of recently installed applications, the visual representations including at least one visual representation of a universal application that is installed on an additional device associated with the user account and not yet installed on the computing device, the one or more visual representations of universal applications that have been installed on additional devices surfaced in at least one of a “recently added” section of an application launcher interface which presents applications that have been installed on either of the one or more additional devices or the computing device or an “on other devices” section of the application launcher interface which presents applications that have been installed on the one or more additional devices but have not yet been installed on the computing device;
• presenting, proximate the at least one visual representation of the universal application, a download control selectable to download the universal application to the computing device;
• presenting, proximate the visual representation of the universal application, a visual device identifier which identifies the device on which the universal application was originally installed;
• and
• responsive to receiving a selection of the download control, downloading the universal application to the computing device, the downloading of the universal application causing removal of the respective visual device identifier.

A computing device comprising:

• a display device;
• at least one processor;
• and
• one or more computer-readable storage media including instructions stored thereon that, responsive to execution by the at least one processor, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
• receiving, at the computing device, authentication credentials to sign in to a user account, the user account managed by an account manager that tracks universal applications that are installed at the computing device and at one or more other devices that are also associated with the user account;
• responsive to signing in to the user account, communicating with the account manager to determine the tracked universal applications;
• surfacing, in an application launcher interface of the computing device, one or more visual representations of universal applications that have been installed on the one or more other devices that are not yet installed on the computing device, the one or more visual representations of universal applications that have been installed on other devices surfaced in at least one of a “recently added” section of the application launcher interface which presents applications that have been installed on either of the one or more other devices or the computing device or an “on other devices” section of the application launcher interface which presents applications that have been installed on the one or more other devices but have not yet been installed on the computing device;
• presenting, proximate each visual representation, a visual device identifier which identifies the device on which the universal application was originally installed;
• and
• responsive to receiving a selection of one of the visual representations, initiating a download of the respective universal application to the computing device, the downloading of the respective universal application causing removal of the respective visual device identifier.