Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s Chairman and CEO, took the stage in Las Vegas to recount where Palm’s been and tell us where Palm’s going.  Click on the video to watch the entire 50 minute presentation.

The follow are the key points:

Hot Apps Bonus Program

Katie Mitic, Palm’s SVP of Product Marketing, announced $1 million in prizes to be awarded to top webOS developers.  The prizes are open to both free and paid apps developed using Palm’s existing Mojo SDK.  The prizes are tiered as follows:  $100,000 each to the top downloaded free and paid app, $10,000 each to the developers of the next two most downloaded free and paid apps and $1000 each to the developers of the next 200 most downloaded free and paid apps.  The download period will be between February 1, 2010, and May 31, 2010.  Drop by the newly relaunched Developer Center to get started developing your app today.

3D Gaming Comes to the Palm Pre

The announcement that got the most reaction was the release of 3D accelerated games, made available by Palm’s new Plugin Development Kit (or PDK).  Joining Palm onstage to make the announcement was Travis Boatman, VP Worldwide Studios for EA Mobile, who introduced some of their new titles.  In all, twelve PDK titles are available in the App Catalog, including the much hyped Need For Speed Undercover, The Sims 3, X-Plane 9 and Tetris.  You can see a video review of Gameloft’s Ashpalt 5 on WebOS Roundup.

More important than the release of these twelve games, though, was the PDK itself.   The PDK allows for development of applications that work with webOS but that are developed with C and C++ — in other words, native applications.  One of the criticisms from some developers is that Palm’s Mojo SDK, based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, is too slow for some types of applications.  The PDK, and the fact that Palm has been testing this with some partners possibly since the release of webOS, indicates that Palm was well aware of this and has a solution.

While we’re excited about the release of the PDK we’re not sure that the capabilities of the Canvas element have been fully realized by game developers.  As Frank Zammetti pointed out, there is a tremendous potential for applications developed with existing Web standards.  Particularly as we see technologies such as WebGL get included in webOS.  Further, battery draw from games that tap the GPU will likely be big issue.

The PDK is scheduled for release in March on the Palm Pre and a later date for the Pixi.  In case you missed the significance of the statement, the 3D games available today in the App Catalog are only available for the Pre, not the Pixi.  Those missing 80 pixels could be very significant indeed.

Video Recording, Editing and Sharing

Those of you who’ve been following the homebrew announcements knew that video recording is possible on existing webOS devices.  It was only a matter of time before Palm incorporated the feature into the OS.  Palm demonstrated their upcoming video recording functionality at CES.  What they also demonstrated was the integrated video editing and sharing capability.  With a few clicks, Paul Cousineau, Director of Product Marketing at Palm, edited a video he shot live at the event then uploaded it to You Tube.  After it was uploaded, he used another feature to share the video with his Facebook feed.

Many have criticized Palm for not having the feature available before now.  Hopefully, this very slick implementation will go a long way towards smoothing any ruffled feathers.  What’s more important is that this feature will be included with webOS 1.4, another free update available to all webOS devices sometime in February.  Although it wasn’t discussed, we hope that audio recording will also be included in 1.4.

Flash 10.1

It was confirmed that Flash 10.1 will be available soon.  According to Paul Cousineau Flash 10.1 will be available for download from the App Catalog.  This feature will open up the Web even further for webOS devices.  Some have pointed out that the recently announced SlingPlayer, being Flash-based, will work on webOS, allowing you to watch and control your TV on your Pre or Pixi.

The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus

Palm also showed off the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones at CES.  The Pre Plus sports double the memory and storage (512 MB RAM, 16 GB Flash) of the original Pre and sheds the center button.  The Pixi Plus adds WiFi and more storage and memory.  Both devices will ship with Touchstone compatible backs.  These two phones will be Verizon exclusives (see below).  No doubt the increased memory and storage will be important for applications developed with the PDK, as many users have noted that the 3D apps sometimes fail to launch with the dreaded ‘too many cards open’ message.

Another Verizon exclusive will be the ability to use the Pre Plus or Pixi Plus as a MiFi hotspot, allowing up to five devices to share the 3G connection.  All you’ll need to get your laptop online is the app and a webOS device on Verizon.  What was not disclosed is how much the data plan for that will cost.

New Networks

Palm announced two new network partners at CES:  SFR in France and Verizon Wireless in the US.  As mentioned above, Verizon will be getting an exclusive on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus (at least in the US).  Verizon currently has about double the subscriber base of Sprint in the US so this opens up a huge market for Palm and app developers.  What remains to be seen is how Verizon will promote the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus.  If they are half as successful as they were with their Droid Does campaign then the more consumer-focused webOS devices will sell very well.

Analysis

It seemed that Palm’s announcements were targeted very strongly towards developers.  Palm realizes that in order to compete with Apple and Android its important to have apps.  The opening of the developer program, the freeing of the app distribution process, the Hot Apps program and the PDK all point to the fact that Palm is deadly serious about expanding its App Catalog.  Palm is actively courting developers and is making it clear that they embrace openness, even giving a ‘shout out’ to the homebrew community at CES.  This is very exciting news and this strategy will very likely bear fruit.

What a strikingly different out-of-box experience awaits those users whose first webOS device runs webOS 1.4 as compared to those of us who started with the first release of webOS.  Certainly the underlying OS that we all love hasn’t drastically changed but the power, features and available apps have grown tremendously.  Kudos to Palm for the customer focus and rapid updates.  This is clearly one area where Palm outshines Apple and Android.  Many Android devices are stuck on older versions of the OS and are unlikely to ever see updates and Apple’s releases are slow in coming.

Prior to CES we predicted a number of things.  We got most of them right.  We missed on seeing a non-Palm branded webOS devices and we didn’t have any clue about the Hot Apps program.  However, what was most important about CES is that Palm has again generated buzz.  They showed that Palm was not to be ignored in the smartphone wars of 2010.  They reinforced that they are committed to extending the functionality of their devices through more updates to the OS.  They showed they’re committed to reaching more end users.  We think 2010 will be a great year for Palm and a great year for webOS users.

Other Reviews of Palm at CES

All Things Digital agrees that Palm has shaken things up once again.  Slashdot has some coverage of the Hot Apps Program.  Ars Technica ha a writeup about CES.  PC Magazine has a hands-on with the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus.  About Palm Pre has some interesting thoughts on Palm’s developer strategy that mirror our own.  And, of course, PreCentral has a lot of articles about CES.

1. gDial Pro: An unofficial Google Voice client
2. Forbes.com: An interface to Forbes.com’s financial news and stock data
3. Local Concerts: An app that helps you find local concerts
4. Checkers: The classic game of checkers
5. Currency Converter: An app to assist with currency conversions
6. Lights Out: A logic game
7. Video Poker: A card game based on video poker
8. Simple Bible: A King James Bible
9. 4:20 Wallpaper: An app that automatically updates your device’s wallpaper on a schedule
10. AccuRadio: An AccuRadio streaming player.

Tune in next week when we’ll uncover the next batch of apps!

PreDevCamp Wrapup

August 8th saw groups all around the globe meet to learn and discuss programming webOS, the operating system behind the Palm Pre.  Several cities, including our hometown, also received free copies of the first webOS programming book.  A number of applications were written in the week following preDevCamp, including our own Match ‘Em, and there is a contest going on over at PreCentral.net.  Vote here.  Voting ends on the 22nd and we can use your votes!

Here’s a video of the preDevCamp meeting at Palm headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA taken by Marco van Hylckama Vlieg.

The preDevCamp in the Washngton DC/Baltimore area was hosted by Alice Carback.  A number of people showed up and we talked about setting up the development tools, writing first applications and learning how to use the tools Palm provides.  A general good time was had by all.

Palm Opens App Catalog

On Tuesday, Palm announced the opening of the App Catalog for submissions.  Now app authors can have their applications considered for release in the app catalog.  Here are the details:

• You can charge a one-time fee for the download of your application.
• Initially, the user base for e-commerce will be limited to the United States.
• Developers will receive 70 percent of revenues generated through application sales (less applicable sales taxes).
• webOS users will pay for their application purchases using credit cards and will download apps directly to their webOS device.

With that and Palm extending a hand to game developers, it’s definitely an exciting time to be a webOS developer.    Expect to see more Pre101 applications arriving in the App Catalog in the near future.

Palm’s Data Collection Brouhaha

As originally reported by Joey Hess and discussed at PreCentral the Palm Pre gathers information about device usage and location.  The long and the short of it is that Palm’s privacy policy spells out what information they collect.  Palm issued the following statement to clarify their use of collected data:

“Palm takes privacy very seriously, and offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off. Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust.”

Much of the information that Palm collects is collected for the purpose of making the advanced features of the phone work.  Nothing appears out of line with industry standards.  However, it’s good to be aware of the information that is being collected and, if you’re concerned, pursue their opt-out option.  Of course, if you’re looking for real data collection head over to Data Net.

Other News

The Palm Experience rolls on to The Grove after a successful run at Americana at Brand.  If you happen to be in LA drop by to get the experience and report back to us.  For those who are interested in an On-Screen Keyboard webOS Internals gave us a peek at the work they’re doing.  There were also rumors that the next version of iTunes would support third-party devices but the source of those rumors appears to be faked screen-shots.  Lastly, Palm seems to be turning up the heat on marketing.  According to the Palm Blog we’ll see the Palm Pre popping up in a number of places.  As always, share your news stories with us in the comments or by Twitter.

For more information on updating check out Palm’s page.