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Google Dev Phone 1 Banned From Paid Apps
ScrewMaster points out an short article according to which purchasers of the G1 Android phone's developer-oriented variant will be out of luck if they want to buy apps from Google's application store. "Google is not going to allow programmers who have purchased the Dev Phone 1 to purchase paid apps from the Android Market. I just signed up as a G1 developer, and was about to plunk down the $399 for a Dev Phone 1, but now I'm going to have to think about it. I know that Google is interested in preventing (cough) 'piracy,' but does this seem like the right way to go? I know the Dev Phone 1 is primarily a developer's tool, but I would like to actually use the thing, and not have to spend another $180 from T-Mobile for a regular G1 just for the privilege of buying software." I hope this isn't true; the unlocked G1 looked like a pretty cool phone, especially (being unlocked) for travel to countries where pre-paid SIM cards are the norm.
How many times does it take to realize that crackers will get around any kind of protection? Especially on an open source platform.
As a company like google grows, practices like these are only going to become more common. They have to start "protecting" their interests. Not that it will work, but it's the natural reaction, much like a "fire hot, fire bad" reaction.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Those of us who would like to do iPhone development have to buy an iPod Touch if we want to use a "developer device" that isn't our main phone. That so-called "developer device" doesn't even have the full hardware capabilities. Considering the fact that the iPhone is still a fairly buggy platform, you develop on your main phone at your own risk. I've owned my iPhone for 3 months now, and even after reboots and firmware reinstallation, I still cannot get the speakerphone to work anymore.
So please, stop complaining. $399 is not a hefty price tag if you are serious about developing on it. Sure, it would be nice if you had no restrictions, but you do have more freedom than your biggest rival platform.
It's still a cool phone. You're banned only from using apps where the apps are only available from the Google store, and which cost money. It's not as if you're banned from developing apps, or using free apps, or using apps you've installed via alternative means, or anything like that.
Essentially, any developer who insists on payment and who insists on using only the Google avenue for distribution will find they're not making a lot of sales to users of free (as in freedom) phones. That's a choice they make, just as those who develop paid apps for Windows that insist upon using copy prevention techniques also lock themselves out of other markets. You've not going to run that software under GNU/Linux.
This is a website where a significant number of people have chosen to use Free operating systems, and where even the non-free software that most of us use under those Free operating systems has been made in an environment in which the authors have made a conscious decision to allow the software to install on an environment they have no control over. You and I know it works. You and I know that those of us using distributions like Ubuntu are having a much more relaxed, friendly, and productive time than we do using the non-free platforms, despite some developers boycotting - consciously or otherwise - our platform and not making their software available for it.
If you want a G1, there's no good reason to let this news stand in the way of you doing so. Do it. Add yourself to the numbers of those with unlocked phones. Make developers choose between locked down and free, rather than making them choose locked down by default.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
1) Root the phone
2) There is no 2
While Android may have an app store, you are not required to buy your apps from it. Despite what the TFA says, you can still actually use it.
I've been waiting for Google to become the typical corporation doing anti customer work, but to kick your developers squarely in the balls, that's a bold move.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Something strange is going on. These limitations turn the G1 Dev into just a unit and functional test platform for your application. You need another G1 to perform integration tests, but if you could debug the integration system easily why would you need the G1 Dev? I wonder if Google does develop applications in that way.
When Google announced the Android phone and cellphone carriers started to talk about how much better this was than OpenMoko I figured this was where things were going. They didn't care for OpenMoko because it was too open. The Android phone is thoroughly Tivoized... which is fine for a single-use device like a Tivo, or a plain old dumb phone, but it makes a mockery of the whole idea of a smartphone.
I bet Palm's new phone is locked up tighter than a drum, too.
Oh, the irony. Microsoft's smartphones are the open ones. Way to kill my schadenfreude, you bastards.
What's the appeal of an android phone over an openMoko device?
The advantage is that it just works. Some people want to just buy a phone and then have a nice phone that does it's job well. They don't want to deal with inconsistent, half-assed software that you have to manually hack around with in order to get it to function at all.
(and this is coming from somebody who had been interested in the OpenMoko project for years before giving up on it)
This is a silly reason to ban the dev phone.
Any application can be pirated on any platform. PERIOD! You can make it easier or harder, but you can't prevent it as long as users have physical access to the hardware that the program runs on. All DRM shares this fundamental flaw. Now, with a phone you could assume connectivity at all times and run the bulk of the software on your own servers, and that would prevent copying of the software (consider MMORPGs as an example).
In the case of the G1 you can just buy the app using a non-dev phone with a root exploit installed, then copy the files off and install them on your dev phone. Viola - DRM bypassed. Sure, they could make it harder, but you could always patch the app. You could make the phone require signed apps, but then you could patch the firmware. There is always an expoit - even if it involves an electron microscope. The device is implemented in actual physical hardware, and if you have the means to take it apart you can do so. The only thing you can do is make it so hard that it isn't worth it for some $5 application.
However, half the attraction of android is its openness. If you lock the whole thing down like Fort Knox, what is the point? And if devs can't buy apps from other devs, then that just makes open source that much more competitive on the platform. :)