I think you have to realise that the Android Market is not part of Android, the open source project, but a commercial enterprise run by Google to which currently only owners of officially distributed phones have access (the market app is not open source). So if you would need to have access to market apps, you would need to buy an ADP1 phone, so you could get to the market _and_ be able to get the apps off the phone and onto a device you are developing, but that will not give you access to protected apps. (A G1 will give you all the apps, but not a way of getting to them). Equally, just as you will not send out a device you are making for free to those who develop apps to test whether their apps will work on your device, many developers will not make their apps available to you for free, but you could always ask.
Having said this, I have seen lots of apps crash, not function well etc even on a G1 phone, so the question is what will testing an app on your device really tell you? It could be bugs on your device, bugs in the app or bugs in Android. The real question of course is whether there is something like an Android compatibility test suite that a device must be able to run to be 'certified Android'. I am not aware of one and with things in flux as they are there might not be one, even though I hope that Google has some release testing in place. Ludwig 2009/3/3 mvniekerk <[email protected]> > > Yeah, bump from my side of things as well. > > On Mar 2, 6:10 pm, F H <[email protected]> wrote: > > How does a product manufacturer gain access the Android Market? > > Is it possible to download the applications for testing purposes? > > Does the provisioning system present all Android applications or only > those > > that have been certified to run on a particular device to a user? > > Does the provisioning system only recognise 'approved' Android devices > and > > if so, is the approval process described anywhere? > > Are there any costs associated with hooking up to Android Market? > > > > Many Thanks. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ unsubscribe: [email protected] website: http://groups.google.com/group/android-porting -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
