First off, sorry if this is too subjective, I just didnt know how else/where to ask.
Anyway, in the light of all my recent questions, I’m getting ready to release an Android app soon, and most of the testing has been done on my phone, the Droid. I really dont have the money to test on “multiple” devices, nor do I know anyone with an older phone that I could ask for help that would possibly get any kind of bug. Not to mention, when I do get a bug report, how would I go about fixing it for that particular phone without having to buy it to make sure it actually gets fixed, or that the person didnt just came across a one-time freakish accident of a glitch?
How do you guys solve these kinds of issues?
You can test the vast majority of issues via the emulator:
Check out this data on platform versions and screen sizes to get an idea of what configurations you should test for.
Based on that data, I’d test at least one configuration with API versions 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1, and versions with medium and high density resolutions.
If you wanted to test physical devices, I would guess that the G1 and the Droid would be the top two… G1 would give you the lower API versions, and Droid would give you the 2.1.
Depending on your application that may be sufficient. Applications that make heavy use of OpenGL extensions might need to test further, since that is the area where there is the most difference from device to device. I don’t think that the emulator is sufficient for that. See this thread on the differences.
Other than that, I would just send out a demo version of the app to a few friends or an appropriate forum. If you find problems once you launch, collecting log data from users having problems can be very helpful. I wouldn’t worry too much about device specific problems though, I don’t think they are that common.