Pretty much. And since anybody can sign up as a "developer", this is really a way for Google to keep selling the N1 to geeks without having to pretend to care about customer support. Which is probably the best way to go; those of us who want an unlocked and unrestricted Android phone can get one, and it won't annoy the carriers quite as much since it's not targeted at general consumers.
A Motorola Droid is $440ish, almost $100 cheaper for what looks to me like a better phone.
Any thoughts? I'm an iPhone developer, but I'm considering dipping my toe in the Android water, and I'll need a decent phone. I'm thinking of going 2.0 and up, rather than kill myself supporting a whole bunch of different apis.
The Motorola Droid is nearly a year old and has lower specs - half the RAM and slower processor. Plus the Droid won't fully support all of the new features in 2.2, such as tethering. Droid 2 apparently launches next week and will be on par with the Nexus One/Desire/Incredible/Galaxy S/Evo/Droid X.
If you just want a device to develop apps with just buy a used Droid for under $200.
For me, the killer feature of Android 2.2 (and the Nexus One) is the built-in wifi tethering support. T-mobile is kind enough to not charge for this feature. Find out if you can run Android 2.2 on your phone, and if (or how much) your carrier will charge for it. For N1+Tmobile, the answers are "Yes", and "No extra charge".
The main advantage of having an official "developer" model like the N1 is immediate access to the latest OS. Google pushes updates to the developer models much faster than carriers do, which means you get all the updated features on actual hardware much sooner than your carrier-locked counterparts.
The Droid does have a physical keyboard, but after owning both a G1 and a Palm Pre, I don't really trust any sliding keyboard mechanism to not get crunchy and/or loose after a few months' use.
