Just curious what you guys think is the best Android OS phone to develop apps with. Just throwing out phone names is fine, but reasoning behind it would be really helpful as well. I am going to start developing some apps and need to decide what one to go for. Figured ask the experienced folks first!

At this time it is a challenging question to answer.

What are your goals as a developer and how do you want your applications to be used?

Do you want your applications to be compatible with large parts of the Android ecosystem?

How long is your development lifecycle? Will you take an app to market in 1 month, 3 months, or 6? Are you even considering taking an app to market?

If you are doing real time apps and games the benefit from a purely speed/ability direction comes from the latest hardware (Droid & Nexus One). However, the APIs you will use to develop games are readily available on 1.5 OS devices.

There is fragmentation across the Android ecosystem and it lies not so much with the devices themselves, but the variance of OS versions. Even then not so much in API coverage, but underlying implementation of the API that varies across the OSes. While an API might have been introduced in 1.0 it's implementation may not be rock solid to 2.0.1. An example in that direction is Porter-Duff blending in the Android 2D API. There are inconsistent and buggy implementations pre 2.X. Things work as expected 2.X+, but not prior. While there are not all too many variances there are significant ones when it comes to making a real time app/game run across the ecosystem that may be difficult to uncover.

I'd say if you aren't planning on releasing an app for 3-6 months focus on Android 2.x and 1.6. Old standbys on 1.6 are the G1 and Ion/MyTouch3G (in US on T-Mobile). For 1.5 I can't think of a really attractive device, so pick any to test with...

MichaelEGR wrote:Do you want your applications to be compatible with large parts of the Android ecosystem?

Sure....or better .....it'd be sure cause it could be really heavy to be done.

MichaelEGR wrote:How long is your development lifecycle? Will you take an app to market in 1 month, 3 months, or 6? Are you even considering taking an app to market?

We developed mostrly apps for customers and not by ourself (on the market you can just see PhoneInfo by now), but with a lifecycle of 1 month you can really really do a poor job (I'm talkin about 1 month man).

MichaelEGR wrote:I'd say if you aren't planning on releasing an app for 3-6 months focus on Android 2.x and 1.6. Old standbys on 1.6 are the G1 and Ion/MyTouch3G (in US on T-Mobile). For 1.5 I can't think of a really attractive device, so pick any to test with...

Market researches say that most of the devices now have 1.5 or 1.6 on. So by now that's is the target...

Thank you for the well thought out reply Michael. I'm pretty much leaning to the G1 now, due to market share of what's out there and it's fairly inexpensive too.

Quick question guys, do I actually need cell phone service once I get the G1? Or can I still access the Android Market using my Wifi instead? I dont want to pay for cell service if I don't need to. It's a question im unsure of though.

WulfDroid wrote:Quick question guys, do I actually need cell phone service once I get the G1? Or can I still access the Android Market using my Wifi instead?

WiFi is enough

Thanks, I feel that's a pretty newb question but I really wanted to know ahead of time lol.

Has anyone tried the Android Dev phones? (I think there is just Dev 1 and Dev 2 right now). I was wondering any real benefit for going Dev phone route, or just go for the G1. Ideas?

*Update: Yeah its pretty much down to Dev phone 1 or a T-Mobile G1. Any people that know pros/cons going with either or would definitely help me. Keep in mind I will not be getting TMobile service when I get the phone. Just using it to develop.