Re:Ask HN: What would life be like as an Android Developer?
by biafra on Monday April 12, 2010 @03:27PM
(#1260088)
My Motorola Milestone (European version of the Droid) actually is user update-able. I did the 2.0.1 and the 2.1 update myself. I had to use Windows and RSD-Lite to do it. I got my 2.1 image from here: http://and-developers.com/motorola_milestone:sbf
I had to do this because the OTA update and the official Motorola Updater for Windows were unable to install either 2.0.1 or 2.1_update1.
Re:Ask HN: What would life be like as an Android Developer?
by tocomment on Sunday April 11, 2010 @01:48PM
(#1257254)
Hmm sounds like I should get the dev phone then.
Could I have a dev phone and a personal phone and swa the sims between them as needed?
Or would the dev phone work fine as a personal phone?
Re:Ask HN: What would life be like as an Android Developer?
by biafra on Monday April 12, 2010 @03:29PM
(#1260094)
The dev phones are fine unless you want to install "copy-protected" apps. They do not appear in the market if you use a dev-phone. At least not for the ADP1. The reason is that you can easily gain root access and copy "protected" apps off the phone.
There is a dev phone you can buy once you create a market account. It appears to be an HTC phone similar to the T-Mobile myTouch. It may be the best longterm solution as you can update the OS with Google Images.
The issue with android is that there are 4 separate versions of it in the wild: 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.1. If you want your app to have the widest penetration, you need to target 1.5 or 1.6
The moto cliq (one of the the T-Mobile phones) are stuck at 1.5 and haven't been updated to 1.6 or 2.0 yet. The G1 will likely never be able to update to 2.x (too small of on board flash space on the phone).
I've settled on a myTouch from t-mobile as my dev platform as it has 1.6 on it (which was required to run Appcelerator's Titanium). It may get returned for a cliq if they release an upgrade or any 2.x phone that comes out this month while I'm in the 30 day return period which all cells have in the US when bought without contract subsidy, or perhaps even the dev phone.
The Droid has a 2.x series android release on it.
Do not ask the people in the store, they're clueless about what version is on a particular phone. You can see it in the about menu on many of the phones if you dig in the floor models.
The android phones are not user updateable a la the iPhone. They image gets updated over the cellular network semi-randomly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_devices
can be very helpful in picking a phone.