Develop on AT&T Phones

Question

I'm currently stuck on AT&T due to my wife having a new iPhone so I've been eagerly waiting for a phone to come out on AT&T that would be working picking up. That time comes this Sunday with the Samsung Captivate... but I'm concerned with something. With AT&T locking up it's phones to non-Marketplace apps... does that hinder me in any way on developing on the phone?

Sorry if that seems like a stupid question or doesn't belong here... hoping a user with an AT&T phone (HTC Aria or... something) can help.

Answer 1

ATT is still disabling installation of non market apps so you will not be able to install apps from places other than the market.

You can still develop apps and test/debug on the emulator that comes with the SDK tools though.

Answer 2

I'd be surprised if ATT not allowing you to install non market apps would make it so you can't use the phone for testing/debugging. Before you buy an ATT android phone, check out Settings -> Applications -> Development and if you can enable USB debugging then you will be able to use the phone to test your applications.

Hope this helps.

Update: It looks like the HTC Aria has been rooted too which would allow you to basically whatever you want with the phone. This is why Android is the superior mobile OS :)

Answer 3

It is required, for an device to be able ship with Android Market, for it to be usable as a development target. That means full adb support (including installing apps with adb) for integration with the development tools.