Has this gentleman addressed why he's developing for the Pre in the first place? It seems like Android would be a much better fit for him. There are more Android handsets out there, multiple models with many more on the way, and the OS has a very clear future ahead of it. It feels like some self imposed torture on his part. Both Palm and Apple make their terms pretty clear -- there's no bait & switch here from what I can tell.
Has this gentleman addressed why he's developing for the Pre in the first place?
He's a long time Palm fan/user/developer from back in the 'good old days'. Also he's said that he thinks the Pre is an very nice platform to program for and finds it far easier than the iPhone. So basically he develops for the Pre because he likes the Pre, he just wishes it was easier to distribute the results for free to other Pre userd.
He doesn't trust google & won't create a google account. I'm not an android user, but I believe that this precludes a lot of the functionality on an android phone. Last week he was looking for an RSS reader replacement, but wouldn't consider google reader.
Sounds a little paranoid, to me. He could create a throwaway google account and buy a dev phone, or buy one of the many non-google-branded Android phones either already on the market or coming out this quarter, which can be used without a google account. Once you've got the phone, there's absolutely no requirement that you use a google account whatsoever. The only functionality which requires it are the google apps (gmail, maps, etc, and using the market). There's even a 3rd-party app market already out there (http://slideme.org/)
I don't see how letting google knowing who he is -especially when they probably ALREADY know- is any worse than letting Palm know who he is. For him to tear his hair out over Palm's bullshit, especially when in all likelihood Palm's will probably lose in the end, seems like a futile and masochistic exercise.
