Palm Opens Dev Program, Offers $1M For Top App

CWmike writes "Palm opened up its webOS developer program to the public this week in a bid to close the gap with the number of iPhone and Android apps. Palm will also open up its application distribution channel to developers and Web sites, giving them access to detailed information about applications and statistics, such as the number of downloads. This will allow them to build their own application directories and application ranking mechanisms, Palm's Katie Mitic said. 'As an incentive to developers interested in building their own directories, Palm is offering $1 million to the developer with the most downloads of free and paid applications between February and May, Mitic said. Palm also announced a plug-in development kit for WebOS that allows developers to extend the OS's capabilities using code written in C and C++. Over time, these plug-ins will be incorporated into the software development kit, she said. The plug-in development kit will be released at the Game Developers Conference in March, but a handful of game developers have already put the kit to use. EA Mobile, Laminar Research, Gameloft and Glu all released games that were developed using plug-ins. Those games include 3D titles, such as EA Mobile Need for Speed Undercover, and are now available.'"

Comments

No, It's a $1M pool for the top 442 developers

[isThisNameAvailable]

http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1841&Itemid=35

Just watched the CES Presentation

[El Royo]

I just watched the CES presentation and it was very good. Lots of excellent stuff coming from Palm. The 3D games look great and I've already downloaded one of them. A little sad the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are Verizon exclusives but I wasn't going to replace my Pre in any case. The proof will be in what Verizon does for marketing the Pre and Pixi. If they do half as well pushing it as they did the Droid it will be great, particularly since the Pre and Pixi are much more consumer friendly devices than any of the Android devices, in my opinion.

The PDK, allowing for native apps, really removes that last barrier that devs were complaining about, so I should hope we'll be seeing a lot more active development for the platform. Still, there are a tremendous number of apps that can be developed with the existing SDK. I don't think people have really begun tapping the Canvas element. The 3D games look great but they're going to be tough on the battery.

I should have a review of CES up on Pre 101 tonight, so check back if you want the executive summary of the CES announcement.

Re:Just watched the CES Presentation

[LurkerXXX]

WebOS just looks more elegant and feels more friendly and intuitive than Android. The gestures it uses make navigation and use easy. I was just listening to the Engadget podcast from CES and they were talking about how much nicer the gestures were to use than the 4 button android interface. Plus the card interface makes multitasking and closing programs a snap, while they were bummed at how to actually close an app they no longer wanted in Android, they had to pull up a task-killer program to kill it off.

As for the N900, it is very phone. It's a bit brickish, but I might deal with that. The ports of native linux apps on X-windows is a big bonus. The real problem for me was it's only on T-mobile, and I don't happen to live in one of the very limited number of cities with good coverage by them, plus I travel to rural areas not infrequently, and they've got zilch there.

You should play with a Pre as well as a Droid before going with the N900. This is a great time for smart phone buyers. Lots of good choices. No one should want any of the phone makers to fail. More competition on their part is better for us.

Oh, The other nice thing about the Pre is it will now be available on Sprint, Verizon and AT&T, so you aren't so limited by worries about coverage with the provider that uses the phone. The N900 is only good if you have T-Mobile coverage. The Droid is limited to Verizon, but then again that's not much of a limitation as Verizon is more likely to have good coverage in your area than the others.

er - not quite.

[ConfusedVorlon]

They're offering $1million in prizes to be split between a bunch of top apps.

There are two prizes of $100k for the top paid and the top free app, and a bunch of smaller prizes.

Very cool, but not what the summary says.