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The Kafka-esque Nightmare of Palm App Submission
MBCook writes "Jamie Zawinski, shortly after the release of the Palm Pre, wrote two free software programs for the phone: a Tip Calculator and a port of Dali Clock. In trying to get the apps published to the App Catalog, he has had to sign up to be a developer twice; fax contracts around; been told (apparently incorrectly) that he was not allowed to release free software for the phone; and told he had to give PayPal his checking account number. 'It's been two weeks, and I have received no reply. In the months since this process began, other third-party developers seem to have managed to get their applications into the App Catalog. Apparently these people are better at jumping through ridiculous hoops than I am.'"
The old, imho to date unmatched, Palm OS is dead, the new Palm seems to become a screwup, iPhone/iPod Touch is a lockdown nightmare, WinMobile is a no-go and developing, integrating and deploying to Blackb*rrys is like grating your fingernails.
The Matter of fact is: Mobile is a mess, very much the way desktop computers were in the mid-eighties.
We are in dire need of an eqiuvalent to the Arduino platform in the PDA market. Small, cheap, relyable, open standards, with a simple single-touch screen a neat CPU and some run-off-the-mill LitIon battery industry standard. 6 months into the first batch we'll have FOSS programmers and hardware hackers expanding it to be a cellphone for those who want it to be one.
THAT is what we need.
Just the open standard equivalent of my oldest colorscreen Palm at the price of 100 Euros and an FOSS OS that comes with it, that's all I ask. It can't be that difficult with hardware prices dropping left right and center.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Stuff like this?
I opened a free bank account and pointed a free PayPal account to it. Total time, 1 hour at bank and on computer.
Done.
Apps submitted for sale from Palm.
Yes, there are issues with Palm creating the infrastructure to handle all developers apps being submitted. However, the poster is constantly deciding that he won't do the simple things Palm asks, to help them manage the volume. Fine, those "problem" developers can wait until everything is figured out.
Why in the world should Palm spend hours and hours appeasing a developer of two mediocre apps (yes, I've used both) when the same time could get a dozen more developers setup for submitting apps. Obviously, it is some sort of conspiracy, rather than just good business sense.