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This is great news for devlopers (or at least me, and I want to be a mobile app developer).

Get an iPhone subsidized, pick up this cheap Android device, and suddenly be able to develop on both platforms while paying <$65 a month for data (plus my regular phone service that I already pay for). A year ago that would have cost a heck of a lot more.

And I'm fine with it being a weak Android phone, I had planned on developing to a low spec device anyway.




> And I'm fine with it being a weak Android phone, I had planned on developing to a low spec device anyway.

I just gave up my iPhone yesterday for a Nexus One. All-in.

Yes, it's not a minimum-spec G1 but I wanted to use it in place of the iPhone. I truly believe if you want to develop for a platform you have to use it everyday. All the quirks, some of the benefits. The iPhone is definitely smoother but I do like the hardware 'back' and 'menu' buttons. Keyboard and screen sensitivity is driving me nuts... The App Market is a mess - took me forever to figure out which Advanced Task Killer was the real monty (tons of title/keyword spam). The lack of scrolling gravity is really noticeable but less annoying now.

I am truly amazed at the quality of the Twitter for Android application (compared to most other apps).


Don't use a task killer, it'll just mess things up for you. Either uninstall or stop the services you don't want (using the built-in app manager).

Android ~1.6 did have some issues, plus the slower processor and memory meant that the task management didn't really work out like it was supposed to. But it's absolutely not needed on modern Androids.


Unless your provider is anything like mine, Sprint. They load your phone down after each update with apps you don't want (Nascar, Blockbuster, NFL) which cannot be uninstalled without rooting and seem to randomly just appear in running tasks.

Also I've found that a properly-configured task killer can do wonders on battery-starved android phones like the Evo 4G.


Thanks


For keyboard complaints, get Swype. It chagned me from never using the soft keyboard on my Droid to using it 75% of the time, and I specifically got a Droid to have a hard keyboard.


Except Swype is not readily available for the Droid. At least my Droid 1.


https://beta.swype.com/android/get/

Except it is. You have to get it from their site instead of the Market.


Hey, thanks! Last I checked, the beta was closed. I had to jump through some hoops to register, but now I'm good.


Oh man, this is really great. Thanks again!


Thanks again, I love Swype! The times when I can go scrawling like mad and it recognizes the word - it's like wow, it's a game. Then again, it hates new words. But I like that it can let you still type words keystroke by keystroke. I find I'm not capitalizing a lot of my texts and emails because it requires extra effort.


> Get an iPhone subsidized, pick up this cheap Android device, and suddenly be able to develop on both platforms while paying <$65 a month for data

Why not get an Android on the same carrier as your existing phone? If it's for dev use then it doesn't need its own plan; just swap your existing SIM into it. Not like you're going to be developing for both phones at the same time.


This is what I did; I have an N1 and an iPhone 4, and every now and then I swap my SIM into the N1. Just needed to get a MicroSIM adapter off Amazon and everything works great.




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