Google Dev Phone 1 Banned From Paid Apps 134
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.
Experience teaches... it does what?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Evil google (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Experience teaches... it does what?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Way to perpetuate the myth that source is such a huge bonus when trying to crack a framework.
Thanks.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Single-point Rebuttal (Score:1, Insightful)
1) Root the phone
2) There is no 2
Let's not confuse Android with the iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
For tests only (Score:2, Insightful)
Ruin my schadenfreude, why don't you. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Google Phone strikes me as half-assed (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
Re:Experience teaches... it does what?! (Score:1, Insightful)
Something being open-source means that more eyes will see the code and potential bugs will be caught quicker. Meanwhile, the kind of people who would maliciously exploit bugs are the kind of people who thrive on challenges like disassembly and reverse-engineering.
Re:Important points (Score:4, Insightful)
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. :)
Re:Well, be glad you have that option (Score:4, Insightful)