[ILUG] Android phone availability in Ireland?

[John P. Looney]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 4:51 PM, Braun Brelin <bbrelin at gmail.com> wrote:

> A further question, since I'm looking at possibly doing some Android
> development, are all Android phones
> created equal in this regard?  Are some phones better dev platforms than
> others?
>

 Yes. It's really annoying. If you get a phone that's marketed as an open
phone (like the Nexus One, the Droid in the US and the G1 Dev version), you
can flash whatever you want. I believe the N900 will also run Android, and
it seems completely open. The N900 really doesn't seem like a mass-market
phone though, it seems like something aimed at linux geeks.

 If you buy it through a carrier, it'll be locked to various extents - some
won't let you change anything. The European Droid (Milestone) won't let you
flash it. Some will lock all but the bootblock, some will lock something
half-way.

 That said, there are (by design) ways you can force-update those sections
of the flash, but they void your warranty. If you are doing application
development, you can get pretty much anything, as you don't need an unlocked
phone to install a .apk file over USB/http. If you are playing with
bootblocks, looking to install cyanogen or various unsigned builds, you'll
need to make sure you get a reasonably unlocked phone.

 Like the Chinese government, the mobile industry's closed mindset is
something Google is finding very hard to change, but it's better than it was
a few years ago.

John