You can access SharedPreferences in several ways:

Get the default SharedPreferences file:

import android.preference.PreferenceManager;
SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);

Get a specific SharedPreferences file:

public static final String PREF_FILE_NAME = "PrefFile";
SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences(PREF_FILE_NAME, MODE_PRIVATE);

Get SharedPreferences from another app:

// Note that the other app must declare prefs as MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE
final ArrayList<HashMap<String,String>> LIST = new ArrayList<HashMap<String,String>>();
Context contextOtherApp = createPackageContext("com.otherapp", Context.MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE);
SharedPreferences prefs = contextOtherApp.getSharedPreferences("pref_file_name", Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE);