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

[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.

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: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.