First off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a Computer Systems Engineer by profession, live in Australia, and have a long-standing involvement in open source projects.  I work with both hardware and software, and most of my open source involvement has been related to firmware for embedded consumer devices.  In the last 5 years, I founded and lead the NSLU2-Linux.org project (PDF presentation), and when the Pre was announced I founded the WebOS-Internals.org and Preware.org projects.  I have used Palm devices since the PalmV, and my current phone/PDA device is a Treo 650 (I do not yet have a GSM Pre, and the CDMA Pre that I do have does not work as a phone in Australia).

When you first learned about the Pre what was it that excited you about it?

I have been looking for a phone that allows open source customisation for a long time.  I was involved in the OpenMoko project, and have a number of Neo 1973 and Neo FreeRunner development devices, but always preferred the physical keyboard of the Treo 650.  So I was looking for a Linux-based phone with the same format as the Treo 650.  Upon realising that Palm was embracing the strategy of an open device, I immediately took interest, and started WebOS Internals as a means to gather and collate the information that was being uncovered as people explored webOS.

Rick Boatright said that the Palm Pre open source community came together very quickly.  Did that surprise you?

I think the speed at which a community comes together depends a lot on the environment and structure that is put in place to enable that.  I had a lot of experience in facilitating open source communities from the nslu2-linux.org and openwrt.org and openmoko.org projects, so I had a good idea of what has worked in the past and what has not.  An IRC channel and an open Wiki is the baseline of what you need.  Then you need source code repositories and a culture of sharing information openly rather than hoarding it for personal benefit.  That culture is pervasive throughout the Linux community, but definitely not so pervasive in the mobile applications or gaming platform hacking communities (where you get multiple groups trying to show that they are somehow “better” than other groups).

You need to be inclusive of contributors of any kind, whether they be designers, coders, wiki editors, or just people that hang out in the IRC channel and help new people.  Some projects focus too much on the code alone, and forget all the other aspects that are required to not only advance the development, but also to publish the results of that development in a form that can be taken up by the wider community of users.  So the speed at which WebOS Internals came together was not so much of a surprise to those who’ve come from similar style projects in the past.

I imagine you were pretty disappointed to hear that the Pre wasn’t (officially) coming to Australia.  How did you come by the the CDMA Pre?

I was expecting a delay before an unlocked GSM Pre was released, and perhaps even a further delay before it was available from Palm Australia.  But the news that Palm had effectively pulled out of Australia altogether was a bit disappointing.  I was able to do quite a bit of investigation and development on the Emulator, but there are some things for which you just need a real device to experience.  One of the community members in the IRC channel started a donation drive to purchase an off-contract legitimate CDMA Pre for export to Australia so that I could use it for development.  In less than a week a Pre was purchased (after another community member checked out the ESN to make sure it was “clean”) and was on it’s way across the Pacific.

There was a running joke at the time that I might open the package, hold the Pre in my hands for the first time, not like the feel of it, and abandon the project as a result   Even though the CDMA Pre is not useable as a phone in Australia (which is exclusively GSM/UMTS like most of the world) I have still been able to use it at home and at work on WiFi and get a good feel for how it operates.

I take it then that you liked the feel of the Pre?

Yes, it feels good in the hand.  The keyboard is not as good as the Treo 650 that I am used to, but I expect I’ll get used to that over time.  The GPS on the CDMA Pre does not seem to work in the Southern Hemisphere when you have no carrier assistance data, so I haven’t been able to get a feel for that aspect of things yet.  I like the concept and implementation of the touchstone (I actually have two of those now).

What webOS-Internals development are you most proud of?

I personally have invested most of my time and effort into creating an open standard advanced homebrew ecosystem, where authors can submit their applications to their choice of submission site, and users can use their choice of installer, and every application from every author is available to every user.  There are over 1000 packages (applications, themes, patches, services, plugins, linux utilities) available in the open standard package feeds at http://ipkg.preware.org/feeds/ and these packages are available to any installer utility that partakes in the open standard advanced homebrew ecosystem.

Most users see the results of this work as the packages available for installation by our Preware application and the online repositories accessed by the WebOS Quick Installer and PreLoad tools (which are both examples of tools developed by other groups who collaborate in this open standard homebrew ecosystem).

I’m especially proud of the WebOS Internals developers who took this concept and did a thorough design (from a usability, security, and interoperability point of view) and implementation of the Package Manager Service and the Preware application.  The recent introduction of the Pixi hardware, and the upgrade to webOS 1.3.1, has shown just how important it is to take a holistic and forward-looking approach to the design of critical pieces of software like the Preware installer.  Preware supported webOS 1.3.1 on both the Pre and the Pixi on the day it was released, and is still the only installer tool able to apply webOS patches on the Pixi.

Palm has been very receptive to the homebrew community.  What’s your impression of Palm’s position on the patching and theming community?

Initially, we had no idea how the activities of the WebOS Internals group would be seen from Palm’s point of view.  However, from the very start we determined that we would be a development group that places an appropriate importance on complying with legal agreements, copyright laws, and carrier terms of service.  We also determined that the security of the platform would be a driving factor in any development decisions we made.  It is for these reasons that Preware does not allow installation of packages from a random URL on the internet, and the WebOS Internals Meta-Doctor requires an end-user to customise their own copy of the webOS Doctor files rather than illegally distributing already modified versions, and modifications to webOS are distributed as patch files rather than as complete copies of the proprietary Palm source files.  In just the last few weeks, we have seen the impact of poor security decisions on people who are affected by the iPhone Worm.

From informal discussions with various people at Palm, we are glad to know that Palm respects the fact that WebOS Internals has these principles, and whilst they obviously cannot officially sanction or support the types of advanced modifications we do to webOS, we do know that they appreciate that some structure and safety has been put in place around things that would have happened anyway with such an open platform.

Not too long ago Palm announced that they’ll allow developers to self-certify their applications and receive a download URL.  What effect do you think this will have on homebrew development, if any?

I think that self-certification of applications and Palm-determined download URLs will streamline the deployment of “normal” webOS applications to the user community.  From a Preware point of view, we will approach that just like we do for any other package feed: we will aggregate it alongside all the other sources of homebrew applications (PreCentral, WebOS Internals, etc) and make it available for users to install in one place through Preware.  Since the URLs will go through Palm’s servers, it should not impact the security of the platform (Palm can simply pull any rogue applications by making the URL no longer resolve).  We don’t believe that “advanced” homebrew packages (like services, plugins, themes and patches) will be suitable for (or accepted by) the self-certfication process, so there will always be a place for “trusted” community-managed repositories of such packages.

Where do you see homebrew and patch development heading over the next year?

WebOS Internals developers (I am just one person amongst a team of many) are focusing on applications that take advantage of custom Java and C services (an unofficial “Native SDK”) to achieve things that normal homebrew applications can not do using the official Palm APIs.
Examples of applications that use custom services are Preware itself, the Terminal application, the wIRC application, and the up-coming Backup Utility and Video Recorder applications.

On the patching front, we hope there will be a trend towards consolidation of patches with more user preference options, rather than an explosion of individual slightly-different patches.  This is one reason why we are proponents of the MIT Open Source License for patches, because it not only allows Palm to incorporate the patches into webOS itself without fear of incompatibility with commercial concerns, but also allows developers to consolidate multiple patches into a single “multi-mod” patch with the same flexibility as all the individual patches combined.

What advice do you have for developers who want to get involved with developing patches for webOS?

Create your patches on the Emulator, not on your phone.  Once a developer has used their webOS skills and knowledge to modify the files, the process for creating the patch file is well-known in the Linux development world.  This knowledge and process needs to be transformed into tools that webOS developers with no previous Linux development experience can use to easily submit and maintain patches.  There are plans underway to make the submission process for patches more streamlined and integrated with the existing homebrew community resources.

Are you comfortable recommending Preware to  people who are not technically savvy?

Once Preware is installed (and some great instructions for installing Preware have now been developed at http://install.preware.org), it is very easy to use, and as long as people remember to uninstall themes and patches before a webOS update then we believe it is the easiest and safest way to install, update, and remove packages that improve the functionality of their phone.  The original UI design for Preware was actually reviewed using paper mock-ups with a focus group of “mature” non-technical users before a line of code was written.

What’s your favorite pizza topping?  I hope it’s not kangaroo…

Chicken (free-range), capsicum (that’s green bell peppers in the US I believe), mushrooms, onions, pineapple and sweet chilli sauce.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions!

Thank you Roy, and thanks to all the developers and users that make the webOS community so great!

Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to Palm. Who is Chuq?

I’ve been with Palm since February 2009. Prior to that I was a web developer and community manager for Laszlo Systems. Prior jobs included Strongmail, 17 years at Apple doing lots of different things, four years at Sun Microsystems, and jobs at a number of startups that no longer exist. I took my first computer job around 1978 and I’ve never regretted it.

I came to Palm because I really felt webOS and the Pre had a lot of potential and I was really interested in getting involved in mobile computing. I owned one of the first Palm Pilots and over the years I’ve tried pretty much every phone platform and never felt any of them did everything I wanted them to do. I have a chance here to influence some of that.

Your title is Developer Community Manager. What exactly does a Developer Community Manager do?

I view my job as having three three major components:

First, I manage the technical pieces of the developer portal and administer the forums. The goal is to have a good environment for developers to get the information they need to develop their applications and learn from each other. I also spend time trying to see what works in other communities and looking for new tools and new techniques to improve the developer portal and the community.

Second, I am one of the conduits of information from Palm out into the developer community. Part of that is to try to identify information that the developers should have and convince people to release it or otherwise get it where they can access it.

Finally, I’m a contact point for developers and part of my role is watching what is being said and written about Palm and identifying issues that need to be communicated to people within the company. Sometimes that’s helping someone find the right person to talk to, sometimes that’s filing a bug that’s been reported, sometimes that’s seeing a discussion start and making people aware of it. It’s part listener, part filter, part editor and sometimes part amplifier. A big part of my job is listening and putting the pieces together and then passing them around.

Why is it important for the average user that Palm has a Developer Community Manager?

An important aspect of the success of a smartphone like the Pre and the webOS platform is the applications available for it. You need a platform developers want to write applications for and create a platform that allows them to write the best applications they can. Part of my role is to make that happen (and the rest of my role is to help everyone else at Palm make it happen).

Recently Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer joined Palm as co-leads of Developer Relations. How does their position relate to yours?

They are my co-bosses. I’m in the marketing side of the company, reporting through them up to Katie Mitic.

Palm recently announced some major changes to the way the App Catalog and app distribution will work. Would you say these changes were directly the result of Ben and Dion or that these changes reflect Palm’s original goal?

Yes and no. Much of what’s been announced with the App Catalog and our distribution plan has been in the works for a while; a number of people in engineering have put in a lot of time and energy in figuring this out. Ben and Dion coming on board has given us access to their experience as well, and they have a vision for how this can all work that is helping us refine our plans and expand what we want to offer to developers down the road.

Will Palm’s embracing of open source extend to open sourcing the Mojo framework?

At this point, we haven’t announced anything on this.

There was some criticism of the state of the documentation when the SDK was first opened to beta testing. What plans have been put into place to improve developer resources?

It’s still a work in progress, but we’re looking to improve this in a number of ways. We’ve been talking over ways to allow the community to help us expand and improve the documentation. We’re looking at how best to make the documentation available and in what formats. We’re working to add resources to the writing team and make sure the engineering teams help us document what they’re building well, and we want to find the best way to make beta versions of the docs available to developers as part of the early access program. We still have work to do here.

How different is the experience for a developer joining the program today versus the experience for those who were part of the Early Access Program?

Early on, webOS was a brand new platform, and I don’t think anyone really understood well what made a “good app” or a “great app”; now I think everyone is learning how to take advantage of the platform and the apps are getting better and more complex. Sharing knowledge on technique is an important aspect of this, which is why I love how our communities have come together to help each other learn. Initially we tended to see everything as a “webOS app”, but we’ve realized different types of apps have different needs, which is why documents like our Immersive Apps Guidelines are helping us adopt and share techniques as we understand how developers are taking the platform in directions we weren’t expecting.

The SDK is maturing and the software is getting needed functionality, and so now developers coming to the platform have a more stable and functional base to develop on, and more knowledge to help avoid the pitfalls that exist on any platform. The earliest developers were real trailblazers, and I don’t think most people realize just how far the platform has grown and matured in the last few months.

What role can Palm play, outside of http://developer.palm.com, to encourage and participate in the development of an active user and developer community?

One of the things I love about what I do is our relationship with the homebrewers. Even the fact that they define themselves as “homebrewers” instead of “jailbreakers” says a lot about how both sides view this. My management has allowed me to get some of the homebrew developers into our early access program and the homebrew community has been very supportive of us, and I want to do everything I can to see Palm and these developers continue to work together to make the platform better.

I’ve also tried to encourage people to get involved with non-Palm-managed communities where I think it makes sense to work with a group rather than have Palm try to duplicate what is already being done elsewhere. Many companies feel they have to “own” everything; I’m trying to encourage a mindset that it’s more important to make sure it happens and that it’s well done, and as long as we all work together, we’re working for the common good.

Anyone who’s followed you on Twitter knows that you’re very interested in birding and photography. How did you get interested in them?

I’ve lived with a bird for a couple of decades now, currently sharing a house with an umbrella cockatoo named Tatiana. I was a photographer in high school and earlier in life, but gave it up to focus on other things, but the digital camera revived my interest and my interest in nature photography, my current passion — the two came together, and I’ve really gotten interested in birds in the wild and their habitat and behavior and documenting that through the lens.

What do you want Pre101’s readers to know?

A big part of my job is listening — listening to developers and finding out what they need, listening to users so I can help developers write apps that users want and will use. I love having developers bounce possible project ideas off me. If they have questions, the developer forums are the place to put them, both because it allows the community to get involved in answering them and it helps create a knowledge base that others can benefit from later when they have similar questions. Developers who have questions or issues they can’t seem to resolve should track me down and talk to me about them — I’ll see what I can do to help.

Last question:  What’s your favorite pizza topping?

These days, I’m trying to eat healthier, so I’m eating more Canadian bacon (Hawaiian style with pineapple). In the bad old days, it was sausage or pepperoni.   But my REAL favorite… which is a bit bizarre, is smoked salmon. Do a pizza with a sauce based on creme fraiche and a bit of tartar sauce, and top with smoked salmon and capers.

Sounds good to me!  And with that, thank you, Chuq.

Chuq Von Rospach can be reached at pdn@palm.com, you can follow his official Twitter feed: @webOSdev.

Jason, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background.

Well, my name is Jason Robitaille, one part university student, one part hobby developer, all Canadian.  My website is www.canuck-software.ca though lately I’ve been posting most of my software in the Canuck Software subforums at PreCentral.

WebOS Quick Install

One question that came up at the Sprint Open Developers Conference was:  How do you pronounce your last name?

My last name is pronounced “row-bih-tie”.  It’s a French name, heh.

How did you get started with programming?

I got started years ago during high school.  LOVED the PalmOS back then and had the Zire 71.  In grade 10 computer science class they taught us very basic VB.NET programming and from there it was only natural to play with HandheldBasic, and from there I was hooked on software development.

How did you become interested in webOS development?

My current device is the Palm TX.  Around last December I was looking for a prospective smartphone.  I was really on the verge of quitting Palm for good.  With all the buzz about “Palm’s last stand,” their make or break announcement happening at CES, I figured I’d wait until after that before making any decisions.  Turned out the Pre was exactly what I was looking for in a smartphone.

If I understand correctly, you still don’t have a Pre yet because it’s not available in your area of Canada.  Why invest so much time in a device you can’t even use yet?

It’s because of my Palm TX.  I still use it daily and it’s like a mini computer.  Unfortunately, with the Pre and webOS, it doesn’t have the same breadth of third party apps as the PalmOS  A lot of apps I make are in anticipation of getting an actual device (with a few being done on request).  I wanna make the transition from the highly functional, but very outdated, PalmOS to the sleek webOS as smooth as possible.

For those not familiar with it, can you tell us what webOS Quick Install is and what’s special about it?

WebOS Quick Install was released several months ago, and it was the first, and to date only, cross-platform ipk GUI installer.  And it’s come quite a long way since then.  Not only does it offer full application installation and uninstallation, but more recently it was expanded to offer full patch integration. In just a few clicks you have access to dozens and dozens of patches for your device. What’s more, WebOS Quick Install also supports installing .patch files directly, all the while following webOS-Internals standards.

Other notable features include the ability to send and receive files to and from your device, theming, a basic Linux command line interface, and most popularly, a built in ipkg feed viewer.  With the ipkg feed viewer, you have access to hundreds of applications from across the web.

webOS Repair Utility

You also have a program called webOS Repair Utility.  Can you tell us what it does and why you wrote it?

webOS Repair Utility basically scans the program files on your device and compares them to the respective factory stock files.  In this way, it’s able to detect modified and missing files on your device, offering the option to restore the factory file. In addition, there is the ability to do a factory restoration of a specified file.  The advantage of both these features is you no longer need to wipe your device with webOSDoctor to restore files.  One thing people need to keep in mind is this is an in-development program, so keep expectations realistic.

I made this program in response the issues I had seen across the PreCentral forums.  People were having to use webOSDoctor when only a handful of files needed to be restored. It was insane to me that people were having to spend all that extra time running webOSDoctor and restoring things to how they were pre-wipe.  It’s still in-development.  [ed: I had a chance to use it so that I could apply a patch that was balking.]

Theme Builder

Then there’s webOS Theme Builder.  Some of our readers may not be familiar with themes and how they work.  Can you first fill us in on how themes work and then tell us how Theme Builder makes it easier to design themes?

As webOS is built on a foundation of HTML/CSS/JavaScript, virtually everything about it can be skinned. Skinning on the desktop is accomplished with WebOS Quick Install and a zip with the replacement images and a theme.xml file in it.  The theme.xml basically tells which files go where on your device.

WebOS Theme Builder basically makes things simplified.  The theme.xml gets built automatically, and with the latest 2.0 release, there’s a theme assistant, providing an easy way to add common image replacements for images like icons and system graphics.  [ed: Themes let you change the look of many parts of webOS.  At last check there were over 600 themes available.  You can use webOS Quick Install or Preware to install them.]

Internalz

Lastly, there are Internalz and FileMgr Service.  Who are these for and what do they do?

One thing sorely missing from webOS was a file browser.  It seems really inconvenient that users had to connect to a computer in USB mode to move or delete a file. With that in mind, I made Internalz and FileMgr Service.  Internalz is the webOS application that you use and FileMgr Service is a background service that powers Internalz.

Currently Internalz is able to browse the full file system, copy and move files and directories, rename directories, and delete files and directories. May not sound like much right now, but I have big plans for Internalz in the future. One particular plan is to add unzip/unrar/untar support. Can’t go into any other details, but rest assured, there’s lots of useful features coming to Internalz.

Are there any others that I missed?

Recently I created an open source utility call Unified Diff Creator. In short, it’s an easy-to-use patch maker. I’m also one of the people working on the open source video recording app. Everything else is in development and not yet released to the public.

Judging by the types of programs and apps you’ve produced it seems like you are more interested in the ‘nuts and bolts’ aspect of webOS.  Would you say that’s true?

Yea, that’s pretty accurate.  However it’s a bit more due to necessity rather than choice.  If I could, I would be doing a lot more webOS on-device applications. In particular, I’d greatly like to develop apps I could sell on the App Catalog (as I’d make more money by even selling $0.99 apps compared to the donations I’ve received), but I feel it’s more necessary to have tools like WebOS Quick Install and Internalz first. Plus, it certainly doesn’t hurt with creating a reputation of building quality software.

What would you like to tackle next?

I have many many things in development.  One big project I want to be continually updating is Internalz.  As well, I have many unreleased projects that I’ve been making progress on, including a dedicated archive extraction app, a comic book reader, a system monitor, and a school note taking app/class management app. But alas I’m only one man and it may be a while before everything sees the light of day. In the more immediate term, however, one project I’ll be working on is an open source cross-platform Java-based port of Rod Whitby’s Meta-Doctor, which I’m calling MetaDoctorX.

Have you had any interactions with the folks from Palm?  If so, what’s their reaction to the work you’ve done?

The only interaction I have with Palm is with Chuq [Von Rospach] (Developer Community Manager), though I’d love to have greater interaction with Palm, and do anything I can to assist them.  I’m a long time Palm user and love the new direction the company is going.  Their interaction with other developers has shown they realize it’s the third party apps that make the platform, and while they may occasionally misstep, it’s mainly as they’re playing the catchup game with the other smartphone platforms (and they’ve generally rectified those situations promptly).  I have the utmost confidence in webOS and wish Palm all the best. If they need to contact me, they have my email, eh.

What do you do when you’re not working on webOS software and dreaming about the day you’ll get the Pre?

Well, university takes up a lot of time.  I’m going for a 4-year major in Computer Science (specialization in networks and security) and a minor in Film Studies. Between university and webOS work, my little amount of spare time goes towards hanging out with friends and the occasional playing of World of Warcraft.

What’s your favorite pizza topping?

I’m a sucker for ham and pineapple, heh.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your current apps, Twee and Feeds.

I am Dennis Wilkins and I started Delicious Morsel as my mobile focused application development company.

Twee was the first project I made for the webOS platform. I created it as a way to see how the platform would work. I am a lover of Javascript and so I thought webOS would be a good platform to venture into, after already doing a few iPhone apps.

Feeds was created as a test to see if I could use the Palm webOS built-in visual widgets to create a pretty and usable app. It was actually in progress for awhile but I never really started putting much time into it, until I talked to the great guys at Pivotal Labs and they said they were working on a Google Reader application, so I decided I should ramp up my production time on it, so that I could compete with theirs, seeing that their twitter app, Tweed, was first to market and it has been an uphill battle trying to get users to convert to Twee.

Is there a story behind the name ‘Delicious Morsel’?

The story behind Delicious Morsel is that I was looking for a good open domain name and I couldn’t find one. I just started thinking different types of names and I really liked Del.icio.us and Juicy Development and for some reason I kept on thinking “Delicious Morsel” which now is pretty apparent why it stuck so well. First off Delicious Monster and the fact that my friend’s subtitle on instant messenger said “Delicious Morsel, give me my bib” for a few years. I didn’t actually put any of this together for a few months until my friend logged in again and had that as his subtitle. It is a quote from Final Fantasy VII, something I never noticed while playing that game. One problem with it is that I am always having to spell it out to people and getting asked whether I make candy or cake.

What attracted you to Palm’s webOS?

This might age me a little but when I was in elementary school to high school I always had a Palm Pilot. My dad would give me all of his old handhelds, so I had the Palm Pilot, Palm V and a Palm 505. They were always fun to play with so I grew to know the brand. Palm dropped off the map and I started getting into mobile devices and when the iPhone came out I became involved in the development aspects of mobile devices. I love the iPhone but I wanted it to have competition. Android wasn’t impressive. Then this forgotten company Palm shows up at CES with the Palm Pre. The device is beautiful and runs amazingly and is, in my opinion, the only true competitor to the iPhone at this time. Reading about the SDK I new I should be able to easily create apps for it. I think Palm may have been 6 months too late for release and still slow on releasing updates but I still feel like there is a huge potential to take up some smart phone market share.

The way the Palm Pre UI looks and interacts with the user also made a huge impression on me. I think this is the key for why I think it will be successful in the mobile market. iPhone was amazing when it came out but it looks the same 2 years later. Palm’s release is just as innovative as iPhone’s was.

What made you decide to develop Twee when Palm already had two Twitter apps?

The common UI components for navigation on both the apps were lacking. I personally use Twitter. On my iPhone I needed 3 apps to switch over, which were a good stock app, Twitter app and e-mail app.. The only thing Palm had was an adequate e-mail app so I created Twee.

As for a stock app, I am debating whether it is worth making one since the one out right now, which I do not use because I dislike it, seems to have everything most people want. I personally would re-work their UI and user experience, probably tie it into Google Finance for portfolio management then call it a day. I don’t think there is a big enough market for me to spend the time doing that though.

Did you find it difficult to develop with the Mojo SDK or did you find it simple to get started with?

The SDK was extremely easy to start with, but you hit a wall pretty quickly into development when you want to start doing stuff like storing data. Data doesn’t always belong in a database and doing asynchronous database calls should be a sin. I personally have some hang ups about the SDK’s power and lack of good documentation, but for building simple apps, it works great.

Given the recent JWZ debacle, how have your interactions with Palm been?

To be honest, I had to do everything he did, I had to jump through same “hoops” but to me it was not a big deal. I distribute my code via the homebrew gallery anyways because I know Palm wants me to continue to develop for their platform. I think JWZ may have over reacted and I personally find him to be a little be on the whiny side. I don’t mean to offend him, but I went through the same things with Apple and you would assume you’d have to go through the same issues with any company that is distributing your product. Distribution isn’t an easy business. Palm has however left me out in the dark a few times and even back in August gave me a 09/09/09 release date. It’s October now and my users are extremely anxious to buy my products. I am glad they are and I want them to have the product and not be mad at me for something I expected to happen 4 weeks ago. I had pulled a beta for Twee a month ago because I expected it to be on the Catalog within a week and got a ton of negative feedback for doing that.

I take it then that Twee has been well received by the Palm Pre community?

Twee has been extremely well received. I know Pivotal will argue this, but on PreCentral my app was rated the best Twitter client with 75% of the votes. [ed: Twee vs. Tweed]  That poll did happen to omit Spaz.

What new features will be arriving when Twee hits the App Catalog and how will it be priced?

In comparison to the last public beta, Twee will include the ability to view followers/following of a user. It also allows you to do notifications for mentions and direct messages. It has WhatTheTrend integration. I also just submitted another update of Twee to Palm with landscape mode and photo posting, without the need of email, but I am not sure if that will be approved before the AppCatalog adding paid apps. It will be $2.99 with free updates for life.

What more can you tell us about the forthcoming RSS reader Feeds?

This app will come in 3 tiers. A free version that only does stand-alone feeds, no Google Integration. A normal version that does Google Reader integration and a little while after a pro version with notifications and offline reading. The pricing isn’t set but will probably be $1.99 and $4.99 for the pro version.
Feeds has been fun to develop. The beta users have really been giving me excellent feedback, just like they did with Twee. It has been awesome.

What’s next for Delicious Morsel?  You mentioned a stock app above, is there anything else you’re thinking about?

I started writing a game a few months ago, I might finish that up. I also have a Location tracker, like a few out there already, that I wrote in July, which I code named Prevent, that has been running on a few peoples’ phones. I just haven’t had the time to do all the server upkeep, even though it shouldn’t be that hard. I do plan on doing some more iPhone development since the stuff that I’ve done for DM is actually really terrible and the good apps I’ve done have all been consulting work, so I don’t show them off. If my webOS apps take off, I want to work on my Social Evolution platform that I have been writing for a year and a half.

I start many projects and never finish them. I am slowly changing that though.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us.

It was my pleasure. Remember to visit deliciousmorsel.com and check out any new updates to my projects.

Introduce yourselves and tell us about Self Aware Games.

Self Aware Games is a small development studio, started in early 2009, to make games that use the new wave of mobile technology and social networking to let people play games together. That’s the official statement, at any rate. To put it differently, Self Aware’s a small group of people from wildly diverse backgrounds who work really hard to make games that people will love to play together.

Who are those people?

Self Aware Games is:

Colin Bulthaup Liotta: Engineer, tech pioneer, jack-of-all-trades
Dan Kurtz: Engineer, thespian, man-about-town
Crystal Silva: Artist, pugilist, gourmand
Seppo Helava: Designer, speed-writer, the guy you’re talking to now

How did you get started programming games?

Each of us at Self Aware Games had a different start into the industry – but Self Aware Games, itself, was started earlier this year. Colin and I, who’ve been friends since we met 13 years ago at MIT, had made a homebrew Game Boy Advance game with some other friends for a contest a few years ago. That project was incredibly fun, both to build, and to play, so when Colin & I each found ourselves with a little unexpected “free time” earlier this year, we were both really excited about working together like that again. To round out our skill-set and fill out the team, we brought on Crystal and Dan, both ridiculously talented folks, and Self Aware Games was born!

Can you tell us some about your development process and tools?

The development process is focused around answering the important questions as quickly as possible. Obviously, the most important question is, “Is the game fun?” But answering that requires you to break down the game, and figure out where the fun actually is.

For instance, with Word Ace, the biggest question is, “Is it fun to bet on whether you can spell the best word given a poker-style hand made up of letter cards?” On one hand, that’s a pretty simple way to describe the whole game – but you’ll note that nowhere in that question does it say that the game has to be in any sort of electronic form.

Before anyone wrote a single line of code, we answered the question with the cheapest, fastest tools possible: a pen, some index cards, and a stack of loose change. A cheap set of poker chips and an actual deck of cards that we wrote letters on came after that – but by playing the game with some cheap, quick mockups, and a handful of willing players, we learned a lot. When you want to play “one more hand,” and you end half the hands laughing manically, it’s a sure bet the core mechanics are right.

That took us two days – it showed us what was critical about the game, where potential weak points were, and what we might do to address them. One of the biggest things we learned was how critical the social aspect of the game was. Winning wasn’t winning without the ability to mock your opponents. From a gameplay perspective, this kind of rapid prototyping is essential.

For the actual implementation of the game, we took a bit of an unusual direction. When faced with a new platform (compounded by the fact that it was a new piece of hardware with a new OS), getting your bearings is always a challenge. When building a game, making sure the game works properly is always a challenge. Building a game on a new platform compounds those challenges and makes them 10x harder.

What we decided to do was to separate the problems as much as possible.

Dan took on the task of tackling the Mojo SDK and getting familiar with the Pre hardware. He was able to focus on just that task for a reasonable amount of time, because Colin took on the task of getting the game code up and running on a platform we already had experience with. Once the game was running, and relatively stable, Dan was able to build a webOS client for the game, focusing only on the problems specific to webOS.

This made development much easier and much faster than it would otherwise have been, and allowed us to get a really polished, really full-featured game onto a brand-new platform in a very short amount of time.

Where did you get the idea for Word Ace?

The idea was sort of shockingly simple, but there’s a funny story behind it. The first thing we’d done was to try to figure out what kinds of games the Pre’s audience would like, what kinds of games the hardware would support, and what kinds of games we’d want to make. Word games and card games were the obvious choices, and so we bounced ideas for those kinds of games around for a couple days.

At 2 AM one morning, I woke up suddenly, sat bolt upright, and had this idea about how to smash the two together. I banged out an e-mail to the gang, and promptly fell back to sleep. In the morning, when we all got together to talk about it, we were all really psyched for the concept. Turned out, though, that everyone had completely misunderstood my e-mail – which was sensible, given that it was a garbled, mostly incoherent 2 AM mess – but that misunderstanding was better than the original idea… so we went with that, instead.

We ended up making a  prototype the next day with a stack of poker chips and a deck of hand-written index cards. We played for half an hour, and all of us knew this was what we had to do next.

What drew you to the webOS platform?

Obviously, it’s a feature-rich platform. Coupling things like background processing with the Pre’s hardware keyboard, GPS, touchscreen, and persistent connectivity – the possibilities are ridiculous! I can’t say anything about it at this point, but we’d laid out some long-term goals for Self Aware, and webOS’s features enable us to realize some of those goals in a way that can’t be done on any other platform. I’m afraid that’s all I can say about that, for now.

What experiences did you have with other mobile platforms before starting on Word Ace?    Are all your games solely for mobile devices?

Self Aware Games was started at the beginning of the year – but team members’ development experience ranges across lots of platforms, from the Game Boy Advance to the PSP to current-gen consoles and the iPhone. Our first game as Self Aware Games was Taxiball, for the iPhone, which let us get our feet wet with this incredibly powerful generation of mobile devices.

Our goal isn’t to focus on a single platform, but rather, a single concept – using new technology to let people do things together. While things like Twitter let you keep in touch with your friends, it’s almost more a notification service so that you friends can know what you’re doing on your own. Things like Word Ace let you have a shared experience with your friends, and interact with them *while you’re playing*. The goal was to get that “playing games with friends in your living room” vibe, but online.

So, to that end, we’re not focused on a single platform – we’re focused on putting that experience wherever it makes sense to have it.

Were there many surprises while developing Word Ace?

This may seem a little weird, but the biggest surprise while developing Word Ace was how few surprises there were. From the original concept, to the paper & pen prototype, to the implementation in-game of everything from the core mechanics to the “frills” like the emotes and chat… almost nothing changed. There were a few tweaks here and there – the UI changed slightly, and some little details came and went, but the game was incredibly clear to everyone from the start – and over the course of development, the biggest surprise was how smoothly it all went.

This may not be surprising to the casual observer, but having worked in game development for the better part of the last decade, I’d never seen anything like it. Every project has something that goes horrendously wrong. This one didn’t.

How did the roll-out of Word Ace go?

Overall, the roll-out’s been spectacular. Response to the game has been overwhelmingly positive! We had a couple hiccups during the rollout, but we were able (with Palm’s gracious support) to iron everything out in a matter of days, and the game’s been running like butter ever since! People have had some really insightful feedback, which we’re working to incorporate into our next update – we’re constantly striving to make the game the best it can be.

Will we be seeing another game for the Palm Pre in the near future?  Will we be seeing a port of Taxiball?

It’s very unlikely that Taxiball will be ported to the Pre for a variety of reasons, mostly that Taxiball was written specifically for the iPhone – and porting it would require rewriting the game from scratch. We’ve got a huge number of ideas in the pipe, and with only four people, we just don’t have the manpower for the port. At some point, maybe – but it’s not in the cards for the foreseeable future.

But will you see more from Self Aware for webOS? Absolutely. One of the most-requested games for the Pre has been an online multiplayer Texas Hold ‘Em. I’m happy to say that we’re in the process of fulfilling that request right now. With all the features players love from Word Ace, like online multiplayer, Awards, in-game chat, and our unique emote system, we think our version of Hold ‘Em is what everyone’s been waiting for.

Word Ace has been very well received by the Palm Pre community.  Did you have any concerns or were you confident it would be a success?

Oh, there are always concerns – but we’ve had Word Ace up and running for months, so we’ve been playing it daily for a pretty long time. There were a few times where we were pretty sure things were turning out alright. We had some people over for a BBQ a couple weeks before the launch, and usually, our BBQs eventually turn into Rock Band parties. This time, though, everyone ended up playing Word Ace instead! For hours. Until their batteries all died. And then were talking about it the next day.

At that point, we were pretty sure the game itself was gonna be just fine.

How important do you think is the social aspect of Word Ace to its success?

In two ways, it simply can’t be overstated. First, when you surprise everyone at the table and take the pot, there’s no better feeling than knowing that it’s real people flipping their sad avatars and writing notes in the chat window. That social element makes the game what it is, and there’s no replacing it with any amount of AI.

Second, people want to play with their friends. That’s what Self Aware Games has been about from the start. All of our games have a social element to them, and Word Ace is the evolution of what we started to build with the leaderboards in Taxiball. Playing games to kill time is a fine distraction, but playing games with your friends is more than a distraction – it’s the kind of interaction that reinforces old friendships, and builds new ones.  And if we can get people to take a minute of their day to interact with each other, then to us, that’s the biggest success of all.

Will we be seeing some new Word Ace awards soon?

Yes. We actually have a whole handful of Awards that haven’t rolled out yet – there’s a really spectacular series of money-related Awards, and a couple sets of Awards that’ll roll out when we unveil a couple new features for the game.

Word Ace features premium chip options.  When will that feature be enabled?

That will be ready soon. We wanted to make sure everything was properly up and running, and past any usual launch “hiccups” before anyone even had the option of paying for anything in the game. With the last update, we’ve got those hiccups ironed out, and you’ll see the chip packages enabled shortly.

Thank you very much for speaking with us.

Thanks!

Updated: Added shot of the prototype game and a link to Seppo’s video.