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A major issue with this is that incomes are different in different places. Maybe to someone in Silicon Valley spending a hundred to two hundred bucks a month o

A major issue with this is that incomes are different in different places. Maybe to someone in Silicon Valley spending a hundred to two hundred bucks a month on a bunch of apps is reasonable, but to a student that has less than 50 bucks left after rent and groceries (and might need to buy new clothes sometimes, too), this is ridiculous. It’s a similar issue with the completely ridiculously priced smartphones. Android often loves breaking their APIs, so you need to test the new releases on a physical phone before they’re public. Google now dropped the Nexus phones, so that means you need a Google Pixel. The cheapest Google Pixel is 900$ in Germany. How the hell am I supposed to pay for that? Or is App Development now supposed to only be a thing for big businesses?

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
> you need to test the new releases on a physical phone Why not use the emulator?
- kuschku 9y ago
  Because that doesn’t expose issues that appear with the UI gestures, or some interactions. I’ve tried with the emulator, but it never is the same as the real device, and you just can’t test pinch-zo-zoom for example on an emulator.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    You can use any android device to send multi-touch, gestures and sensors events to the emulator: http://tools.android.com/tips/hardware-emulation http://tools.android.com/tips/hardware-emulation Android Emulator also has been supporting "multi touch" via the mouse and keyboard for a while now, IIRC it's alt+click. Android devices that run stock android and get monthly updates can be bought for under 150 and even 100 EUR e.g. WilleyFox.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      > Android devices that run stock android and get monthly updates can be bought for under 150 and even 100 EUR e.g. WilleyFox. Yes, sure, and I’ve still got my Nexus 5X – but Google only provides the preview releases for the Pixel devices from now on, all other devices only get those after release.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago

> you need to test the new releases on a physical phone Why not use the emulator?

kuschku 9y ago
Because that doesn’t expose issues that appear with the UI gestures, or some interactions. I’ve tried with the emulator, but it never is the same as the real device, and you just can’t test pinch-zo-zoom for example on an emulator.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  You can use any android device to send multi-touch, gestures and sensors events to the emulator: http://tools.android.com/tips/hardware-emulation http://tools.android.com/tips/hardware-emulation Android Emulator also has been supporting "multi touch" via the mouse and keyboard for a while now, IIRC it's alt+click. Android devices that run stock android and get monthly updates can be bought for under 150 and even 100 EUR e.g. WilleyFox.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > Android devices that run stock android and get monthly updates can be bought for under 150 and even 100 EUR e.g. WilleyFox. Yes, sure, and I’ve still got my Nexus 5X – but Google only provides the preview releases for the Pixel devices from now on, all other devices only get those after release.