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

Re:Useless

[TheKidWho]

Dying? WebOS was just released last summer and quite frankly it's a great Linux based system. Much better than Android and competitive with the iPhone. Unfortunately it needs more apps, but with access to the native hardware now, I believe it will surpass Android in useful apps.

Re:Useless

[Ethanol-fueled]

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.

$1mil paid for top app on Palm....

[L3370]

or 15 million in revenue for being a mediocre application on a platform with a much larger userbase?

My new app

[Jeremi]

Is called "Jeremi pays you $5". If you're one of the first 100,000 people to download it, it will paypal $5 to your account

everybody wins! ;)

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

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

[Rufus211]

Woah, that's huge. According to billshrink's comparison there are only 300 apps currently for the Pre. The lack of apps was the #1 reason I haven't bought a Pre yet.

This should let them easily get 10x the number of current apps for a relatively cheap price. Also since there are so few apps to start with it should be fairly easy for any descent app to at least get the $1k prize.

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

[isThisNameAvailable]

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.

Profit in easier steps

[jolyonr]

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

Re:Useless

[nhavar]

You're making an assumption that the goal of every marathon is to win 1st place.

I'm not sure what you mean by letting go of a dieing technology. Linux? Web Standards (JavaScript, HTML, CSS)? C, C++? I haven't seen any signs that any of those are dying. In fact Gartner had a paper on how Web Apps are the next big economy. That would suggest that Palm has positioned itself very well, especially considering how HTML5 and Canvas are poised to change RIA development.

Re:That works!

[nhavar]

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.

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.

Realistic Expectation Of Success...

[Xin Jing]

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.

Re:Useless

[shutdown -p now]

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.