"game maker Electronic Arts (ERTS) keeps on file 2,500 phone configurations and specifications for quality assurance testing purposes"

So do I, and I'm not even a developer.

They most likely delegate services to DeviceAnywhere by MobileComplete - so, from the click of a mouse, they can access, say, a Vodafone UK device and then at another click get a Sprint US device to demonstrate and test their application on over 2500 different platforms that MobileComplete has to offer.

Meaning... any small-town developer can test their phone on hundreds of platforms on the cheap. Not just the big guys.

Yeah, but won't Luke on AT&T simply drop to EDGE halfway through, then refuse to download any further?

Y'know, like actual real-life conditions on my FUZE just happen to do?

So, can they rule that *all* gaming companies' SDK/devkit equipment practices are illegal?

I've wanted to go into developing Nintendo games for quite some time - and to do so, means I have to apply - as a company - to their development division (WarioWorld), and I must have a metric crapton of other products and software developed on other platforms for them to even think of allowing me to apply.

Same with Sony. Microsoft is somewhat the same - but with XNA, they're in the clear (although they should sell some of those snappy devkits to consumers instead of eBay sellers). Sony DID have Net Yaroze, but that was very rare, limited, a touch pricey, and well, it's a Playstation 1.

And marketing homebrew doesn't exactly work - what am I to do, sell a digital download you have to find a way of running on your console? Sell you the modchip with the burnt DVD?

Might as well give it a whack.

Exactly. They may be 'clean ESN' units now, but when Verizon determines that there's 1 out of 5 'prototype' units unaccounted for, guess which one is going to be on the blacklist?

Only good this phone would be for is MetroPCS or Cricket... or any other carrier that doesn't care about bad ESN phones from other carriers.

Have fun, Samsung.

We'll see Bada in the trash by the second half of next year, if you haven't lobotomized it enough as you did with your latest Android phone with that cruddy TouchWIZ interface.

You have to buy it in bulk by directly contacting them. And by bulk, I mean, say, 5000 units at $80 or so each. So unless you have a half-million to play with, I doubt you'd be getting your hands on one soon.

Surprise! Bell doesn't offer anything less than a 3 year contract on the Pre. Not even off-contract.

Although I *did* pick up a Mogul back when they still had them for ~$130 US off-contract and shove it on Pageplus Prepaid... saves paying hundreds more for a new model of the same States-side. (The advantage of living next to Canada... cheap beer and cheap last-generation phones.)

When they crack Managed Copy encryption, I can't wait - it'll make piracy all the much more easier. Why bother with all the nasty ripping and re-encoding when you can just use the movie company's work as your own?

It is - it's just a software change. Looks like they just took their Classics and re-flashed and re-labeled them.

And to Mr. Sarva, what are you smoking? I got woken up twice in a single night by my *respectable* smartphone with crummy announcements that you were on Late Night on NBC and then the actual announcement of TwitterPeek.