Google made chages ;ast week that bans people who bought an unlocked version of the Android G1 phone to download new paid applications from the Market.
“If you’re using an unlocked, developer phone, you’ll be unable to view any copy-protected application,” wrote Google employee Ash on the help site in reply to a user’s question on Friday. “This is a change that was made recently.”
This move is to prevent scams that Google have not anticipated earlier, the problem lies in the phone’s full software permissions. Consumer Android phones download paid content to a private, hidden apps folder, inaccessible to the user. Thing is, as is stands, this normally inaccessible folder is accessible on the dev phones. Not only does this let people flat out copy and redistribute apps—it enables a sort of app laundering scam, in which someone buys an app, copies it to another location, and gets a refund for the app (as per the Marketplace’s 24-hour return policy), only to reinstall the copied version later.
The only problem with this move is that not everyone who owns an unlocked G1 are developers and there are people who paid $400 plus a $25 developer fee just to get their hands on an unlocked G1, and now with this move from Google, these people have to pirate these paid apps if they want to use them.
[MacWorld]
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