Android Developer Phone catches up to G1, gets Android 1.1 system image

Owners of the Android Developer Phone (ADP1) found themselves unable to obtain protected apps from the Android Market because of the device's innate ability to sidestep protection measures. Today, the Android development team announced an update to the Android development system image that addresses this problem, along with other compatibility issues the unlocked device had with its locked counterpart, the G1.

Android Developer Advocate Dan Morrill said, "Many developers are concerned about the unauthorized redistribution of their applications, so they make use of the copy-protection feature (known as 'forward locking') which prevents applications from being copied off devices.

However, developer phones like the ADP1 allow for unrestricted access to the device's contents, making it impossible to enforce copy protection. As a result, the Market application on such devices is not able to access copy protected apps, whether they are free or paid. If you choose to add copy protection when you upload your application to the Android Market, then you won't be able to test it on the ADP1's Android Market client. Your application will always be accessible to users who have standard configurations though, and if your application (whether it is free or paid) is not copy-protected it will appear on all devices, including developer configurations."

So the ADP1 is now compatible with the Android 1.1 production system image, supporting voice search, and priced apps in Android Market. Also, business listings in Maps have added details and reviews, support for saving attachments from MMS has been added, the dialer interface has been slightly reworked, and a number of POP3/IMAP issues have been resolved, including a bug which caused 5% of all outgoing Gmail messages to freeze up the IMAP connection.