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app catalog posts

Palm demos web-based Ares SDK for webOS

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 5th 2009 @ 6:50PM

Currently, mobile entrepreneurs wishing to hawk their wares on the Pre (or Pixi, or unnamed webOS device of the future) use a software development kit from Palm called Mojo, a stack of Java-based tools that must be installed, studied, understood, loved, and respected before serious development can get underway. Palm sees that as a barrier of entry for web-oriented developers who want to make the leap to mobile apps, though, which is why they've crafted a new SDK called Ares that's based entirely on web technologies -- in fact, there's no install at all, apparently. Much of the interface is said to be drag-and-drop with enough JavaScript exposed to make your local .com designer feel right at home, potentially opening the app landscape to a whole new set of folks -- and considering that the App Catalog is tens of thousands of goodies behind the App Store and Android Market, they can use every loyal dev they get.

Palm pulls paid apps due to major bug allowing free app downloads

by Paul Miller posted Oct 6th 2009 @ 12:02AM

After mere hours of App Catalog-stravaganza, the paid apps have been removed for the time being by Palm due to a major flaw in purchase verification. From what we've gathered from the seedy underbelly of the internet, an exploit involving building your own dummy application with the same name as a paid application allowed folks to download a free "update" to these falsified shells and score for-purchase apps galore without dropping a cent. Whether or not this was the only exploit afoot we're not sure, but it sounds like plenty of folks found ways to nab apps for free because Palm has clamped down hard on distribution for the time being. Optimistically, the company claims it should have the Catalog back up by tomorrow morning, but if the failure is really as severe as it sounds, we won't be holding our breath.

Update: And... they're back.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in; picture courtesy of glamajamma]

Palm throws the doors open: review-free app distribution over the web, open source developers can hop in for free

by Paul Miller posted Oct 5th 2009 @ 11:47PM

Well, things just got interesting. The very evening of the App Catalog's launch of paid apps, Palm has made a very different kind of announcement: it's going to let developers skip out on the App Catalog if they so choose. Devs will be able to submit an app to Palm, who will turn around and give them a URL for open distribution of the app over the web -- without a review process getting in the way! The App Catalog will still exist for those who want to use it of course, with a $50 entrance fee to get an app inside -- and we're guessing it'll remain the only way to distribute paid apps -- but the new URL distribution should decentralize things just a little bit. In other good news, Palm will be dropping the $99 annual developer fee for folks building open source apps, and hopefully that free ride applies to App Catalog entry as well, though now there's web distribution to make it less of a sticking point. Palm's also going to open up its analytic data to developers, and even is giving away Pres and Touchstones to the audience members of the little shindig privy to this announcement -- clearly the company is making a strong play for developers, and who doesn't like to be loved?

[Thanks, Lawrence]

Paid apps now live in webOS App Catalog, Air Hockey comes first

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 5th 2009 @ 4:25PM

The first paid apps are finally starting to filter into Palm's App Catalog, giving us all another great reason (after our daily caffeine fix has been properly handled, of course) to blow a buck or two every day of our lives. First up is none other than Air Hockey, an app genre that seems to be taking every platform by storm -- we never really thought that the true Dynamo experience could translate well to a couple of fingers on a phone's display, but we're just $1.99 away from finding out for sure.

[Thanks, Joe]

Paid apps hitting the Pre tomorrow?

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 1st 2009 @ 6:01PM

The release of webOS 1.2 got all of the stars aligned for a barrage (or, at the very least, a trickle) of paid applications to start hitting the Pre, and the word on the street is that the first of those will be dropping tomorrow, October 2 -- for users in the US, anyhow (Canadians apparently need to wait a while longer, a problem that Android users up there are all too acquainted with). The company will smartly be tying purchases to users' Palm Profiles, meaning you'll be able to redownload previously bought apps on any device you choose as long as your account is currently tied to it. Of course, the big question is what apps will be available to blow some cash on in the first round of Catalog approvals -- what's everyone hoping for?

Palm's App Catalog is swamped with submissions, bursting with flavor

by Tim Stevens posted Sep 23rd 2009 @ 9:46AM

Palm's App Catalog for the Pre properly launches tomorrow, and right now the question on most peoples' minds is just how many paid apps will be in there when the doors open. Based on the latest word from the development team, the answer could be quite a lot. Apps submitted late to the party are apparently being added to approval queues so long Palm is having a hard time keeping track of them all. Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach has indicated the approval group has "more applications than we could handle well," apologizing because they have "dropped some things on the floor." We're hoping they'll be picked up and dusted off quickly, because the five-second rule is not something to be messed with.

[Via PreCentral]

Palm's App Catalog getting paid apps on September 24?

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 18th 2009 @ 1:44PM

Digital Daily's stumbled across a leaked document apparently addressed to webOS devs that shows a timeline for bringing paid apps to the webOS App Catalog, and one date in particular stands out: September 24 for go-live. The infrastructure's been in beta for a while now, giving everyone some time to get up to speed on the process and iron out the bugs, but for end users, the launch will likely happen in concert with the webOS 1.2 update we've been expecting this month and a redesigned Catalog app designed to support payments. Now, how long before we've got a bazillion-dollar I Am Rich app in there?

Is this Palm's revamped App Catalog?

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 14th 2009 @ 1:02AM

We know that Palm's hard at work implementing desperately needed payment infrastructure for its App Catalog, and we might now be getting some of the first glances of what it -- and the non-beta App Catalog as a whole -- will look like. Major new features include the aforementioned support for credit card payments, some sort of tag cloud that appears to show up when searching, and integrated app management, while many other screens have been gently tweaked from the early release Pre owners are using today. Last we'd heard, Palm had been targeting mid-September for e-commerce to make its grand debut, which is like... now, so we're thinking we won't be waiting long to see this out and about.

[Thanks, Mitchell R.]

Gallery: Is this Palm's revamped App Catalog?

Third-party Google Voice client hits the webOS App Catalog

by Joshua Topolsky posted Sep 10th 2009 @ 9:03PM

It looks like it isn't just bluster from Palm when it comes to thinking differently about its app approval policy. Besides taking a pretty healthy stance on applications that deviate from its current standards, today 10 new titles have shown up for download... a Google Voice app being one of them. gDial Pro, a piece of software which started its life as a homebrew application, is now an official part of the beta store. The program lets you access Google Voice's full feature set (including a dialer), and no one seems very bothered by it. Here's hoping Palm keeps up the flow of new software to the Catalog (they're eating for two now) and they keep a healthy distance from rejection letters.

[Via PreThinking]

Palm responds to NaNplayer rejection: "We are happy for it to continue life as homebrew" until APIs are complete

by Nilay Patel posted Sep 10th 2009 @ 6:02PM

Well, how about that -- Palm Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach has taken the time to respond to earlier reports of NaNplayer's rejection from the App Catalog, and he's surprisingly cool about it. As we'd heard, the underlying issue is that NaNplayer uses private APIs that will change in a future version of webOS, so Palm doesn't want apps built on them. That's understandable, but here's where Palm's doing it right: Chuq says that Palm is happy for NaNplayer "to continue life as a homebrew application until we get to the point where we can release public, supportable APIs for the functionality that it requires." That's the sort of hacker-friendly compromise we can get behind -- anyone in Cupertino taking notes?

[Thanks, Joe]

First Palm App Catalog rejection: NaNplayer

by Nilay Patel posted Sep 10th 2009 @ 11:06AM

Palm's App Catalog isn't exactly bursting with titles yet, but that isn't stopping the company from rejecting apps -- and the dubious honor of First App Rejected goes to NaNplayer, a music player app. Apparently NaNPlayer made use of an undocumented webOS API call, so it makes sense that Palm wouldn't approve it, but there's a somewhat less-sensible flipside: it was using the same API the built-in music player uses to index files so it could make playlists. That's pretty basic functionality, so we're hoping this all gets resolved with a future webOS update -- and in the meantime, NaNplayer will be released to the burgeoning Pre homebrew community when it's complete.

Palm launches e-commerce beta for the App Catalog

by Joshua Topolsky posted Aug 18th 2009 @ 9:40AM

Love the Pre? Love code? Love money? Well it's your lucky day. Palm has just announced that it will begin accepting applications for developers interested in producing for-pay apps for the webOS App Catalog. The company says that requests taken now will make devs eligible for inclusion in the mid-September launch of its e-commerce program. Just like Apple and Google, Palm will be splitting profits of paid apps with developers 70 / 30 (the devs get 70 percent, don't worry), and go figure -- credit cards will be accepted. Of course we're pumped about paying $.99 for a to-do app someday soon, but we're hoping this will also herald in a new age of steady releases for the Catalog, which is still looking frighteningly bare to us. Hey, that's what homebrew is for, right? Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Palm launches e-commerce beta for the App Catalog

Palm's webOS gets a couple more apps -- are the floodgates opening?

by Darren Murph posted Jul 29th 2009 @ 3:27AM

We're doing our darnedest not to be recklessly optimistic here, but after weeks and weeks of nothing, a few new somethings have sauntered into Palm's App Catalog. If you'll recall, we actually heard earlier this month that said catalog was destined to get some serious additions in the near future, and we're hoping that the surfacing of these two is a sign of things to come. Announced this morning over on Palm's official blog, OpenTable and Fliq Bookmarks are now available to download on the Pre. The former allows hungry owners to secure themselves a spot at a nearby eatery, while the latter works with The Missing Sync for Palm Pre to transfer Safari bookmarks from your desktop (Mac for now, PC coming soon) to the Pre. Sure, it's not like these two are the killer apps we've been longing for, but at this point, any progress is great progress.

Palm's App Catalog to see wave of new entries soon?

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 6th 2009 @ 8:41AM

Word on the street is that the lucky devils out there who have access (official access, that is) to Palm's Mojo SDK for webOS have now been invited to start submitting their labors of love for inclusion in the App Catalog. There's absolutely no way of knowing how long it'll take for the bulk of these submissions to become available to end users, but it's good to know that Palm's at least got eyeballs on 'em now, apparently -- and considering how carefully they're still controlling access to the SDK, they won't be inundated with thousands of entries right off the bat. Long-term, though -- for the sake of Palm and everyone with a Pre -- let's hope they are inundated.

Palm's Mojo SDK beta for webOS leaks into the wild

by Paul Miller posted Jun 27th 2009 @ 11:41AM

Palm has done its darnedest to keep the riffraff away from webOS development while it finishes up its Mojo SDK for webOS development, but the floodgates have finally opened with an opportune leak of Mojo to Torrent-vill. Naturally, Palm will still be locking out unapproved developers from releasing their creations to the App Catalog for the time being, but this should hopefully give the everyman a chance to hone apps in anticipation of a day of approval -- and should really beef up the homebrew community in the meantime. The other good news is that Palm is actually adding developers to its "early access program" at a fairly rapid pace, announcing that it doubled its membership this week, and plans to double it again next week. It's all coming together.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: The original leak was strictly Windows-style, but PreThinking notes that it's available for Mac now as well.