Lets get one thing clear, Android is the platform, not the G1. The G1 is an implementation of the platform, but there are going to be more implementations of Android, and some users are already running Android on things other than the G1 (see http://elinux.org/Android_on_OMAP for some of them).
Every developer would love to test their app on all the potential hardware first, but HTC/T-Mobile/Google did not make any arrangements for developers to get their hands on the hardware ahead of launch, and the three of them have made it easier for a random man on the street in the USA to get a G1 than it is for a developer who months invested in designing and developing an app in another part of the world, so I'm not sure why it's so difficult for people to understand why developers are releasing apps that they have significant time investment in despite HTC, T-Mobile, and Googles lack of support for them. AndAppStore.com exists to allow ALL Android developers to make their apps available to users (which is something that HTC, T-Mobile, and Google have so far failed to do). Yes there are going to be some comments about UIs and other issues fed back to developers, but this is inherent in any platform with multiple implementations on different hardware, and as more Android devices are released your going to see more applications which haven't been tested on every platform rather than every app being tested on every 'phone prior to release. It may be the case that Googles Market place eventually fits everyone's needs, but as history has shown, there is rarely a one size fits all solution to a technical problem. I know Google have tried the "don't look at us" argument when it comes to hardware availability, but I find it extremely hard to believe that a company that consistently feeds the public applications labelled as Beta couldn't manage to run a developer programme offering units at cost worldwide. I was at the London Developers Conference where Mike Jennings was talking about the agreements that T-Mobile and HTC had to sign-up to in order to keep the platform open, so I'd love an explanation as to why two companies (T-Mobile & HTC) who have significant worldwide experience in distribution couldn't sign up to worldwide availability even if it was limited to developer who produce an .apk capable of running on the emulator. Al. hackbod wrote: > On Oct 10, 3:18 am, Al Sutton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> There isn't much information at the moment. Hence why other solutions >> are being made available (such as mine athttp://andappstore.com). >> > > Hopefully there not being much information about the market is not the > only reason for doing an app distribution site. :} > > Note that it in my opinion it wouldn't make any sense to have the > market available at this point, because nobody should be publishing > their apps without first actually running them on a real phone, and > since no phones are yet available, that is kind-of a hard hurdle to > jump over. I also think that anyone else doing an app store should > think long and hard about this as well: publishing a bunch of > applications that have never actually run on a real phone is going to > give you a store full of a bunch of crummy applications. Not because > the developers are bad, but just because running an app on the > emulator is very rarely enough to be able to make an app that works > well on the real phone. > > I can already see likely problems on apps in your store: for example > Android Location seems to have these custom menus with small text, > which are going to be impossible to press with your finger. A lot of > people have complained about how big the UI is in the emulator, > without understanding that when you have that screen on a phone it is > a significantly smaller and trying to interact with the UI with a > finger requires fairly large hit regions. > > > > -- Al Sutton W: www.alsutton.com B: alsutton.wordpress.com T: twitter.com/alsutton --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
