What's the difference between installing an app using the
install
pm install
adb install -r APK_FILE
adb shell pm install APK_FILE
adb install
is a command to run from a development host, which uploads a package somewhere temporary and then installs it.
pm install
is a command to run locally on the device.
adb
does indeed utilize the pm
program on the device - see the source code at
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/core/+/kitkat-mr2.2-release/adb/commandline.c