I am not a software developer but I understand 1 simple thing, software developers are the companies and people who will make my Sony Ericsson P800 better and help it reach its potential. Without developers competing and pushing the envelope to bring out new and exciting applications the SE P800 would be a good phone, just not a great one. Without our support, especially for the premier applications and developers, there will be no motivation for them to invest time and money into developing new, exciting and user friendly applications.
The problem with Warez CDs that promise 500+ applications for $15 is that from making this purchase you are not supporting the developers of the applications. When considering to purchase such a CD the following must be taken into account -
1. You have to ask yourself "what are you buying?" How do you know the files wont corrupt your phone or even if the serial numbers supplied will work? If your phone is corrupted, warranty will not cover its repair, what will you do?
2. You will have no acess to support if needed.
3. Software developers are smart people, what will you do when you want to upgrade your pirated software? What will they do to you? The market for mobile phone applications is far smaller than the market for PC software, these developers must protect their market share... to do so they may implement security measures... imagine your phone shutting down and unable to be used because a security measure was activated. This would not be a hard thing to do, remember Symbian 7 is a very developer friendly OS and software developers are smart people.
4. Sony Ericsson themselves will also want to proctect the developers working on their products as they understand that 3rd party developers and applications are what will push their products in the market. What will you do when you have to upgrade your firmware? Will you even be able to do so? What security measures will be in place to check for pirated software?
I personally would not take the risk even though I have seen these CDs advertised on Ebay. With warez there is always a risk, why take that risk with such an expensive device?
Most applications have trials, and there are heaps of free stuff available, so why bother spending money on a CD that is most probably a compilation of trial applications anyway? I say use the trials, see what you like and what you dont and purchase whatever you will need and use. There is no point filling up your phone memory and memory stick with crap you will never use!
Just remember developers need to be supported, cause if they arent, the quality and quantity of applications will diminish leaving us with an excellent phone but with crap all to put on it. Some people will argue that the applications are expensive and sure I must agree. But look at MP3Go selling for $45, a few days later Unreal Player was released at a much more reasonable $24.95 (which I think is even better anyway). Competition between good developers will only be a benefit to us, as each developer releases a better, faster, more user friendly application we are the ones to reap the rewards. We should encourage this and support developers of the better applications.
Purchase and use warez at your own risk, and do so knowing that your purchase is only slowing down the development and release of future software.