@wmarone,
Ugh.

Here we go again.

There is a common problem with apt that is experienced across all system. If you have a flakey network connection and try to update your repositories you can potentially corrupt list files inside /var/lib/apt/lists. These files are used by apt only but they will also break your Application Manager. 1 simple command will fix this... delete those files. They will be rebuilt when you update your cache again.

You need root to delete those files. If a normal user runs into this problem they may never have known or cared to use root and never installed Rootsh. Their ONLY option now is a reflash that could have been avoided if we could get rootsh installed on their device.

Please refer to the thread that I linked to two pages back.

There are legitimate reasons for apt or app manager to not work - and the use of dpkg to be retained. And please see again what I said:
If you read the thread.. you certainly didn't comprehend some major portions of it.