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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.'"
It's still nice to see more competition and original ideas. Think about that next time you're forced to choose between nvidia and ATI, or when you have no choice with respect to cable service.
or 15 million in revenue for being a mediocre application on a platform with a much larger userbase?
I feel like 10 $100,000 prizes would do more to help their cause. $100,000 is still a heck of a lot of money and I think would get more smaller developers to try and go for it. The million dollars will probably be won by a large company.
Assuming this is legal where you live: But if not, hey, try it anyway...
1. Create app that gives people a chance to win $500,000, (but only pays out if app is biggest download) as a free lottery thing.
2. Distribute for free. Give codes to people so you get an extra "ticket" for everyone you recruit to download it, and from those they recruit etc.
3. Sit back and wait.
4. PROFIT
5. Send $50,000 to me for the idea. Thanks
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
You mean like Google's Android Developer Challenge - http://code.google.com/android/adc/
Apple had a little bit of an advantage with the iPhone since it had been out for almost a year with the iPod, had tons of units already in circulation when they initiated their developer program and don't kid yourself into thinking that Apple doesn't offer it's own incentives with their "partnerships" and such.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
1066 official apps in the catalog; 310 in the homebrew channels. I think Palm's real play here is that this coincides with the release of the C/C++ PDK and some games that are very obviously direct ports of iPhone games. If you're an iPhone developer who had a solid hit and it's relatively painless to port your app to WebOS for a shot at $100,000, why not? It's one more opportunity to be the big fish in a small pond like Trism.
I like to think of the browser market for inspiration: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0
I've gotten some commentary about using Hitslink, so here's another reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Both first place and second place are locked in an eternal struggle to outdo each other. The nearest competition is a considerable distance from the frontline. I believe it's third place that is the real proving ground; success in both of my linked resources is defined as a single digit percentage point with the most room for improvement.
It's much easier to advance 6 points and take third place than it is to advance 26 points and take second place. Firefox isn't worried about Chrome or Safari taking second, the effort to get there is much to great. Chrome and Safari on the other hand occupy a position that is much closer to being dethroned by Opera. And IE isn't worried about any of them taking the lead, it has to extend effort to maintain and defend it's lead.
WebOS just has to close the lead on second by doing what the other OS guys are already doing.
It's still nice to see more competition and original ideas. Think about that next time you're forced to choose between nvidia and ATI, or when you have no choice with respect to cable service.
But Yet Another API is not really an original idea - well, it can be if it is really fundamentally different, but is it in this case?
Otherwise, I'd rather see competition in terms of efficiency of implementation, and extra features, with the core set being standardized - and Android doesn't look half bad for that purpose.