DeviceAnywhere lets devs play with 500 phones over the net

In one of the more impressive Frankenphone installations we've ever seen, a company called Mobile Complete has been operating a remote phone-testing service called DeviceAnywhere that allows mobile phone developers to test out their apps on any of their choice of over 500 different phone models. The phones are opened up and have their circuits wired directly into a server, so devs have access to every part of the device, just as if they were physically present. CEO Faraz Syed says that the networked handsets are "surprisingly reliable and robust, even though they look like we've cut them open and killed them." According to the company, all the major carriers and several large content providers are all customers, and only Nokia offers a similar testing suite -- and it's not as robust. Too bad the service starts at $200 and runs from $17 an hour up -- we'd love to spend a couple hours fooling around.

[Kurian @ Oct 19th 2007 4:02PM]

Thats and the most innovative AND retarted thing I have ever seen.

[McGinley @ Oct 19th 2007 6:08PM]

Retarted eh?

[snazz @ Oct 19th 2007 4:06PM]

Even though it is expensive, it seems like a great way for developers to test out their apps on multiple phones. I wonder if they do iPhones.....

[Josh L @ Oct 19th 2007 6:07PM]

The phone second from the bottom on the rack closest to the camera looks like an iPhone to me.

[Ben @ Oct 19th 2007 10:05PM]

In less time then it took you to think up that comment, you could have just read the article and saw the iPhone featured prominently. Hell, even if the words were a bit long and you just looked at the pics ...

[DrDiesel @ Oct 19th 2007 4:21PM]

My prior job utilized this service for testing WAP sites on different handsets and on different carrier networks. Issues did come up with speeds but overall the experience was positive and it did make our lives easier for testing purposes.

[alanwestenbroek @ Oct 19th 2007 5:48PM]

It's a pretty awesome service. The only real drawbacks are the price, and their gawd-awful, giant Java turd of an application that you have to access the devices through. Since they are the real devices, you can't easily do stuff like paste long URLs. Well, you can, but you have to wait like 5 minutes while their server translates what you typed into triple-tap on the phone's keypad.

[charlie @ Oct 19th 2007 6:33PM]

Its ok until you get into the real firmware problems/ on device debugging, last time i looked at it it was just an interface to the keyboard/LCD rather than a true debugging device along the lines of a jtag.

[charlie @ Oct 19th 2007 9:08PM]

And strangely i just got a call and email from these guys.

[Jacob Gohlke @ Oct 19th 2007 7:30PM]

This could be really interesting. I've developed on J2ME before and when you push our your application you are bound to run into some sort of issue. The price will still keep me on my emulators though...

[t-bone @ Oct 19th 2007 8:27PM]

I'd say the price is entirely justified by supply and demand.

[Codelicious @ Oct 19th 2007 10:54PM]

we use it constantly, the problem now is that more people are using it, so some phones are locked for long period of time. if u need to debug something urgent while the device is locked by someone else, er... good luck...