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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.'"
Palm app clunker?
A who'd've thunker.
What way could this pave,
For another DC save?
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is what's actually good in Windows Mobile. Anyone can write software for it and anyone can start a Store site for it. In this respect Windows and Windows Mobile are quite open architectures. All iPhone, Palm and Symbian are really restricted and closed architectures (Symbian requires you to get certificate for the app too), and getting your apps on the stores are a real bitch.
And they say that Apple's App store process is a pain in the ass. Looks like Palm is emulating more of Apple than we thought. :-)
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
So Palm decided that they wanted to imitate Apple? After all, "no press is bad press", and Apple sure has been getting a lot of press for the way it runs the AppStore. Locking down the device... it may not be useful to the *customers*, but it couldn't harm the company at all, could it?
Well, not unless they abandon your platform (or never flock to it in the first place) in favor of Android or even Nokia's Maemo -- platforms that allow the USER to control what they run on their devices.
I think I've learned my lesson. I am not buying an iPhone, Kindle, or (after reading this) Palm -- no devices from a company that intends to control what I can run on my device. Offering a store: GREAT idea. Carefully controlling what goes in this store and prohibiting any other means of getting apps onto the device: that makes it THEIR device, not mine, and I don't want to play that game.
Maybe the world doesn't need another tip calculator...
The name Kafka now gets invoked whenever someone doesn't immediately get what he/she wants. Some administrative thingy gone wrong? Kafka! Your broadband connection doesn't allow you to download at 20Mb and the help desk says that the speed is not constant? Kafka! Your microwave's remote control's batteries are not in stock at your local supermarket and it will take more than an hour to restock? Kafka! You wake up and you find yourself turning into a giant beetle? O wait...
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
Seriously. It's a tip calculator, and a clock. These are the kinds of applications we can do with less of anyway. FOSS software is rife with these small and pointless programs. I agree such software is great as learning tools for others to get a foothold with when writing their own more complicated software, but they're hardly worth getting your panties in a twist over. Palm OS comes with a clock, and last I checked, is bundled with a calculator.
I could understand if it were something truly useful that added to the platform, but these programs do not.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Palm, Apple and MS want you to sign up once pay the fees and have the ability to upload free or paid apps. no one wants to wasted time on a second process for paid apps. the reason for paypal and other access is if you write paid apps and people ask for refunds then Palm needs the ability to get money from you.
While this genius is complaining about these "hoops" others are writing apps and will be getting paid soon.
I can't believe (Ok, maybe I can) that this troll ended up on Slashdot. He put an app out. A tip calculator. One of the forum members asked him to include cents (i.e. to figure a tip from $12.65 if one was so inclined). Instead of doing it, or saying why he didn't want to do it, he added a message into the app "DON'T BE A CHEAPSKATE -- ROUND UP TO THE NEAREST DOLLAR" and went on a rant attack on the forums. Now he doesn't want to be a PayPal verified guy? Doesn't want to re-version his app (when he could add a 0. in front of it)?? Dumbass..
What about Android? TBH I haven't looked into it all that much, despite the hype. A while back (before the iPhone and Android), when I made the decision to move off of Palm OS, I chose Win Mobile for the sheer fact that it looked like the most open platform, which is pretty amazing... And to reply directly to your comment, the problem is that we haven't yet really gotten too far down the line towards open hardware. The level of miniaturization and integration you need to make a small appliance like a PDA is too expensive. As a case in point, I don't see much in the way of "hobbyist" laptops either, and that would be the first platform such attempts would have broken into by now.
Oh hardly. The man wants to distribute free software and he had to print out and sign 10 pages of legal documents. Then he had to comply with a whole bunch of ridiculous demands (like setting his version number less than 1.0.0 for a finished app), then deal with mountains of emails.
Does this sound like an efficient organization? Could it be that the reason why they've been overwhelmed is (gasp!) their ridiculous and inefficient distribution process?
Well, no - after all, that would be too much like *bashing Palm*. See how I turned that on you? Instead of *bashing Apple*, I turned it into *bashing Palm*! Neat trick, huh?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
http://openpandora.org/
It's taking a while, but they are getting there.
wait... which one can you get away with? What?
[signature]
Once I realized it was JWZ, I had that same thought. It is perhaps possible that NOTHING would please this guy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It should be noted that the developer had his own particular requirements:
* Would not sign NDA
* Would not even TALK with Palm about signing an NDA
* Would not change version numbers
* Would not get PayPal verified account
In other words, Palm had certain policies in place. Maybe they were good policies, maybe they were foolish ones. But that was not really the issue. The real sticking point was that the developer felt that, since he was distributing his apps for free, he had an entitlement to be at his own discretion exempt from any policies Palm put in place. And Palm didn't see it that way. Seems to me that there was simply not a meeting of minds and he's better off following his own device and developing for a more open platform. But by his own admission clearly there are plenty of developers who aren't bent out of shape by Palm's policies, which I would certainly not describe as "nightmarish" given the issues stated in his article. To be honest, I was more put off by his whining, histrionic melodramatic tone than by yet another example of Palm's notoriously poor business sense. On a scale of Palm's Pre snafus I'd rate poor battery life as a 10, annoying cursor is annoying as a 2, and the issues outlined in his story as a less than a one.
(Speaking of "annoying cursor," OT but does anyone else have a problem with trying to drop a cursor on the right hand side of Slashdot's comment box?)
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
... there is a thriving homebrew community which Palm supports. Precentral.net has a heck of a lot of apps available for the Pre that are not available in the official Pre store.
(I am not affiliated with Precentral.net, I just have a fair amount of homebrew apps on my Pre).
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
It sounds very much like an organization that has never had to deal with this type of application submission situation, and is still working out the kinks in what what would naturally be a complicated process whole at the same time dealing with a significantly larger response than expected.
Is Palm and their App Store submission process perfect? Hell no! But to call it Kafka-esque is crude hyperbole of the most insulting form.
Oh, and this IS /. Lots of Apple fanboys submit stories all the time here. Or have you not noticed the overwhelmingly positive iPhone stories, even back when they were initially launched and had many similar issues? Or are you blinded by your own fanboyism?
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
If you'd RTFA, you would have seen that the morning after he submitted the apps to Palm for approval, he turned into a giant cockroach. Therefore, Kafkaesque is a completely appropriate adjective.
$comment =~ s/($verb)\s+($noun)/IN SOVIET RUSSIA, $2 $1s YOU!/g;
How hard is it to fax a contract and link PayPal to a checking account? I learned how to work a fax machine when I was 8 and linked my PayPal when I was 10. So I guess the real question is: who would want an app from this guy in the first place?
Not everyone finds PayPal's Terms of Service acceptable.
In addition its none of Palm's business where your payment vendor points; checking account or no.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
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.
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.
Coming this holiday season: the Pandora PDA. It's a gaming PDA wrapped around what is essentially a BeagleBoard. Like the iPod Touch, it's not a phone, so I'm not billed per month for services I won't use.
It's called freedom: You get to choose which monopoly owns your ass.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
You were correct until scripting for Android http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ was released;
now "Python, Perl, JRuby, Lua, BeanShell, and shell are currently supported, and we're planning to add more."
So without trying to offend anyone - if a developer can't manage to bang out an app in one of the many languages
now supported, do you really want to run their app?
Oh, and this IS /. Lots of Apple fanboys submit stories all the time here. Or have you not noticed the overwhelmingly positive iPhone stories, even back when they were initially launched and had many similar issues? Or are you blinded by your own fanboyism?
Apple fanboyism on Slashdot? Are we talking about the same Apple that gets repeatedly attacked on Slashdot for their ridiculous app store approval policies?
Or do you think that Palm should be allowed to be more draconian than Apple because they're smaller?
You're the one getting defensive when his favourite company gets attacked, so who do you think is the real fanboy here?
I press the green "phone" button and get straight to the dialing interface. It loads instantly.
Strip out the bloat, and it runs really well. Three days battery life, no resets / powering off, and plenty of storage space.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Any situation that requires printing, signing, and scanning plus giving your checking account number to a 3rd party (in this era of identity theft and bank account hoovering) to GIVE AWAY an app certainly is Kafkaesque. This is especially true when they could just let people download and install the app like they did with every previous Palm product including cellphones.
It seems that Palm has caught Apple's attachment issues. They manufacture a product and then offer it for sale, but when you hand over your cash and they put the product in your hands, they just can't bring themselves to let go. They recognize in some sense that it's yours now, so they let you leave with it, but they follow you wherever you go so that their precioussssss is never out of their sight.
They REALLY need to see a shrink about that, it's not healthy!
1993 called, they want their site design back.
Don't be silly. 1993 would pretty much predate the availability of color choices on the webpage...
The black background is more of a 1996/1997 thing, as I recall.
Bow-ties are cool.