Another Wednesday has drawn to a close and things have definitely been happening for Palm. The last seven days has brought us webOS 1.2.1, paid apps in the App Catalog and an entirely new direction for Palm developers. There were a few other things of note, such as a news of Flash Player 10.1 and the release date for Palm in Spain. We’ve covered the first two items in depth so we’ll touch on third and then close with a small collection of news stories.
Palm’s New App Direction
It’s tough to overstate the importance of the meeting Palm held this last Monday. At that meeting Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer announced Palm’s new direction for the developer program. In stark contrast to Apple’s tightly controlled app policy Palm is going open up app distribution. Also, Palm is officially embracing and promoting open source applications on webOS.
In this document, Palm explains the important points of the new developer program. To summarize, they are:
- Palm will now officially support loading applications from outside the App Catalog
- Palm will allow developers to self-certify their apps at a cost of $99 per year
- Palm will give developers a special URL they can use to promote and distribute their apps
- Those wishing to use the App Catalog for distribution will pay $50 per app
- Developers releasing open source apps will not have to pay the $99 per year fee
- Developers can bid on premium placement in the App Catalog
The Mojo SDK is still a free download and applications can be developed using all of Palm’s free tools. If you wish to take advantage of the simplified installation available via Palm’s URL and you are developing commercial applications then you will need to pay the $99 yearly fee. The new program is set to appear in December. This is definitely an exciting time to be developing for webOS. Check out this video: The Palm Developer Experience. There was even an article in the New York Times. Seppo Helava of Word Ace and Card Ace fame even made an appearance.
News Roundup
So many major news stories hit this last week but there are a few smaller ones as well. First was the rumor that the Palm Pixi may launch on October 20th. It doesn’t seem terribly likely to us that it will launch that soon. A more definite launch is Telefonica’s upcoming Palm Pre launch on October 14th. In Germany, O2 will be having a premier party on October 12th.