I agree, in fact there was a blog article written by an android game developer that kinda mock'ed this notion of fragmentation.

Quote from the blog: "I'm lucky enough to have occasional access to lots of different Android devices via my work. The whole point of the Android approach to apps is that you can write an app on one device (or even an emulator) and deploy it across everything. In my case, that's been pretty true."

Forbes later published an article calling the guy out. The whole incident was just a hoax, and there's more holes in his story than cheese (he was able to reach down and pull on the pedal for instance, but didn't want to turn the car off for fear of taking his hands off the wheel). Sikes was more than 700k in debt, 20k of which was for said Prius. http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/toyota-autos-hoax-media-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento_2.html

I'm not sure you're using the same Google I am. Predictive searching NEVER gets in the way and can be helpful from time to time.

And android only requires a gmail login for market/google checkout. You don't have to keep your contacts in gmail, (you can import them from your SD card or sim), you don't have to use the google cal, you don't have to use any google app on android. I just so happens that its the main point of the phone, as they're highly integrated and work fantastic together. At one point I wiped my phone and re-flashed once a day for a couple of weeks. I never once had to worry about my contacts, they were there after syncing, and as of 2.1 android now syncs the rest of your settings including your installed apps.

I think you missed the key term "upgrade" in his statement.

On the contrary, I've worked in support (networking) for over 10 years. The situation you describe can and does happen, but we're talking about an integrated phone here. HTC works directly with this software, heavily modifying it in some cases (SenceUI) and built the hardware, any and all phone questions should be able to be answered, especially on a usage question's to be asked by an end user. T-Mobil likewise should be able to answer any plan and upgrade questions to its subscriber base independent of the hardware the customer wishes to use. The article never gives examples, only that they're getting bounced between. Google itself does need to improve its support structure, even for its partners communication is mostly via email and that doesn't work well for those types of users upgrading from their jitterbug. I just think the article itself is artificially inflating numbers to make this appear to be a larger problem with the phone and launch itself.

One customer going by the name Roland78 said he was transferred between T-Mobile and HTC four times, spending a total of one-and-a-half hours on the phone with customer service. "T-Mobile also said Google hasn't provided them with any support documents for the phone. Welcome to direct sales Google!" he wrote.

This guy is just being asinine, someone sitting there with a stop watch, and writing the things the reps say down just so he can contact some news organization with it or works for them already. Honestly, if you have plan questions T-Mobile won't be referring you to HTC, and if you have phone questions HTC won't be referring you to T-Mobile. You'll notice how the article never refers to the information their quoted 'users' were seeking.

Honestly the phone's step by step walk through setup is so easy that if you don't understand it, then see this flowchart.

OH-EM-GEE! they also have my FULL NAME and my CREDIT CARD INFORMATION! What was I thinking giving a company this information! (And they only thing they ask for is birthYEAR not birthdate. I'd rather get recommendation's for twenty-something male's then the chick flick crap a 30 something female would receive.. but hey.. to each their own.)

I double checked my account profile and the only thing it has is birth year, which is used for age group movie recommendations. There is also a pull down menu for the account owner and any sub users on the account as to what movies they are allowed to rent/watch (instantly) Highest is R but there is also 'unrated family'. No where did I enter my full birth date, only year and gender. But this also looks partly removable (or you could lie), but I don't have anything to hide so I don't care and I will enjoy proper recommendations.

I've been trying a few ad blockers, such as AdBlock+ and AdThwart, both use EasyList, but neither block the most annoying ad's to me and that is 'smart text' ad's. Forums that highlight key words that when you happen to mouse over them, they pop up some video nonsense. ABP blocks such ad's in firefox and its one of the biggest things keeping me from liking chrome currently. (the other being this bug: Issue 11700)

I'm holding out for the full review, but I can't see this game going very far. They have a lot to live up to if they're going to compare it to Doom!