There is a catch though; to get a phone one must have an app in the market with a rating of at least 3.5 stars or more than 5,000 downloads. Still, that doesn’t seem like a tall hurdle to cross. Here’s the email from Google:
Due to your contribution to the success of Android Market, we would like to present you with a brand new Android device as part of our developer device seeding program. You are receiving this message because you’re one of the top developers in Android Market with one or more of your applications having a 3.5 star or higher rating and more than 5,000 unique downloads.
In order to receive this device, you must click through to this site, read the terms and conditions of the offer and fill out the
registration form to give us your current mailing address so that we can ship your device.
You will receive either a Verizon Droid by Motorola or a Nexus One.
Developers with mailing addresses in the US will receive either a Droid or Nexus one, based on random distribution. Developers from Canada, EU, and the EEA states (Norway, Lichtenstein), Switzerland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore will receive a Nexus One. Developers with mailing addresses in countries not listed above will not receive a phone since these phones are not certified to be used in other countries.
We hope that you will enjoy your new device and continue to build more insanely popular apps for Android!
Google later made a statement confirmed the program was not a scam:
A thriving developer community is an important part of creating a better mobile experience for users around the world. We hope that offering devices to developers will make it easier for them to create and test great applications. This is inline with other efforts to support developers, which also includes our Android Developer Labs World Tour and our upcoming participation at the Game Developers Conference.
I wonder if this will attract new developers to the Android community.
[SOURCE TechCrunch]
