A preDevCamp update
Folks,
I’ve had private conversations with a number of predevcamp organizers since Gio’s post yesterday. Gio and I had a very positive conversation this morning. I’ll say the same thing here that I told him and the other organizers:
- Palm supports preDevCamp 100%
- We overreacted to the whole disclosure issue. We’ve been in stealth and super secret mode for so long now, we needed a real world conversation to see how we needed to work things so everybody can operate in their own environment.
- As messy as it feels right now, the passion of the community is incredibly positive
I’m optimistic that we can find a good solution. And we’re going to keep talking. We’d love to get your two cents, concerns, and suggestions — feel free to join the conversation here, and be assured that even when we sometimes have to keep quiet, we’re always listening to your ideas.
-Pam
Pam Deziel
Vice President, Developer Marketing
palm | 950 W Maude Ave | Sunnyvale | CA 94085
59 Comments
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What this reveals about Palm is what we’ve already known about proprietary vendors: And that is they do not understand the value of community. What will it cost Palm to support PreDevCamp?
This is/was a PR nightmare.
Comment by finid — May 22, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
For those of us that still haven’t been accepted to the development program can we be so now?
Comment by David McGuigan — May 23, 2009 @ 12:06 am
We’ll see, actions speak louder than words. Was that a veiled apology to the predevcamp organizers?
Please don’t let your newfound Apple genes bring with them an intense propensity for arbitrary secrecy. It doesn’t foster good relationships with anyone, as this whole thing illustrates.
Comment by nerdtalker — May 23, 2009 @ 12:51 am
Yeah…rollouts and associated timing are SO difficult ..and with all the buzz and high hopes the pressures and emotions can skyrocket. It’s too bad that devcamp events have been caught up in the wbirlwind .. but it seemed a bit odd to me to have devcamps before the SDK was fully released, anyway. Sure would be nice to have a full release date on the SDK, tho. I’d be a lot happier getting a pre if I knew I’d have an sdk to go with it.
Comment by Jim — May 23, 2009 @ 12:52 am
Hellow, Release the Palm Developer Tools/Mojo tools. I am eagerly waiting. How long will you be in secret mode?
Comment by Prakash — May 23, 2009 @ 1:49 am
Sounds like a good community; a bit weird that this is the way I heard about it — still getting my head backup after term — but I guess all publicity is good publicity.
Comment by Dave Brown — May 23, 2009 @ 4:24 am
@Pam
With a pending launch date just a few days away, I fear Palm has not done a good job at getting the developer community involved with the launch.
As far as I know, very few developers have been given access to the SDK, and the rest of us don’t have a clue about what’s doable or not.
While having apps like Facebook, quickbooks, and a few other “major” developers available on launch date, you are forgetting “the rest of us”.
Comment by AwayBBL — May 23, 2009 @ 4:40 am
Just checking to see if comments actually show up on this…
David
Comment by David DuPre — May 23, 2009 @ 5:12 am
I’m glad you all came to your senses… Palm needs all the developers it can get to give itself a stable and attractive platform.
Comment by Linh — May 23, 2009 @ 6:05 am
The words you left out were “I’m sorry”.
Comment by name — May 23, 2009 @ 6:13 am
Pam,
It’s been a messy couple days indeed. Thanks for stepping up and reaching out directly to your independent developer community. The folks you’ve had direct conversations with over the past couple days are encouraged and excited about the platform.
Best of luck with the launch.
giovanni
twitter.com/giovanni
Comment by giovanni gallucci — May 23, 2009 @ 6:22 am
Pam, thanks for the transparency here and the support for developers/community.
There’s a strong mobile, developer, and entrepreneurial community out here in Colorado and when the time is right would love to put on a preDevCamp in Boulder.
We put on a Facebook Garage last night that was a huge success, and I know there is a ton of excitement here about the Pre.
Keep up the good work!
Comment by Kevin Cawley — May 23, 2009 @ 6:41 am
When will the SDK become available for all other developers!?!?!?!
Thank You.
Comment by Terry K — May 23, 2009 @ 7:31 am
Smart Move on Palm’s part.
Comment by Fone Frenzy — May 23, 2009 @ 7:57 am
I guess the obvious question I have is whether the SDK will be available by the time the preDevCamp events were scheduled (i.e., one week following the device launch). I’ve been diligently reading the Rough Cuts book, but I don’t see how these events are going to be successful without full SDK access, preferably with enough lead time to plan.
-Scott
Comment by Scott Hutton — May 23, 2009 @ 8:14 am
The response from the developer community is spinning out of control. If this isn’t handled now, you risk losing a lot of people and not getting the development community off the ground. My advice, don’t wait until after the weekend - it’ll be too late.
Comment by Kyle — May 23, 2009 @ 8:32 am
The kids at preDevCamp are whiners. “NDA” is an agreement not to disclose anything! Duh! Why is this so hard to understand? You think because you have “pre” in your name makes you best buddies with Palm and exempt?
Comment by Tex — May 23, 2009 @ 8:57 am
As one of the cofounders of preDevCamp, I spoke with Pam yesterday. I share her optimism regarding the optimism of the community. Had this week’s news been met with indifference, that would have been fatal.
Instead, we saw a flood of opinions from all sides of discussion. I’m very excited at the prospect of the release of WebOS and with the advent of preDevCamps around the globe. It’s clear that there are many, many people who share this excitement.
preDevCamp cannot exist without support from the community and we’ve seen that in spades. With the addition of Palm’s support, we can expect preDevCamp to thrive.
Comment by Dan Rumney — May 23, 2009 @ 9:48 am
A great way to smooth over Palm/preDevCamp relations is for Palm to approve the early access applications of all currently registered members at preDevCamp.
This will…
1) Show preDevCamp that Palm is truly committed to them
2) Help developers get apps in the store quickly, which in turn helps Palm market the Pre
Comment by Laxidasical — May 23, 2009 @ 9:49 am
I am glad to see this posting. As a developer, I’m going to be hopeful that a “good solution” is found!
I hope …
- that Palm makes the SDK available to everyone before June 6th (I still don’t have mine).
- that Palm provides express App submission to preDevCamp participants.
- that Palm helps promote preDevCamp on their site.
- that Palm gives a Touchstone charger or t-shirt and other promotions to the best App of the day during preDevCamp.
Comment by Matthew J — May 23, 2009 @ 9:56 am
palm good job pissing off the people that are going to be probably most responsible for making the pre and webos a sucess. how are u going to win away people from apple and rim without apps? you’re not. doesn’t matter how good ur phone is if we can’t play games on it and do other cool stuff circa apple apps do. so get ur head out of ur ass and stop treating things like national security. with this type of ineptitude palm & sprint give me to look forward to, i am reconsidering my pre & sprint loyalty. i mean honestly its not like u’re breaking new ground on the app front, so you should have a very good feel for what developers are thinking. please make this correct otherwise i see no value in going to the pre without the potential for a solid and well supported developer community.
Comment by stan — May 23, 2009 @ 11:42 am
How did things even get to the point that this posting was necessary?
The Pre could just be another device, perhaps a little slicker than your average SmartPhone, or it could become a platform, engendering much greater value for the customer and profitability for Palm. Has anyone at Palm heard the term “network effects” or “applications barrier to entry?” Apparently not.
Some idiot at Palm apparently decided that not being a platform was the better option. Was it a lawyer who doesn’t understand business, or was it a business person trying to demonstrate that an MBA is not an indicator of competence?
Whatever the case, I’m mystified. If I were a decision-maker at Palm, someone would have been fired over this.
Comment by Bob Smith — May 23, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Apologies for the delays in getting comments approved. Wanted to comment on that a bit: no conspiracy here, but we’re having trouble with the anti-spam filter for blog comments, so the comments are currently fully moderated. I’m a little slow approving things because I injured my ankle last night and so I’m having to stay off of it as much as possible, I’m approving things as fast as I can one-legged… Sorry about that.
chuq
Comment by Chuq Von Rospach — May 23, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
One more thing. I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller, The Tipping Point, to everyone at Palm even remotely related to courting community developers and ISVs.
Comment by Bob Smith — May 23, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
I read on Reuters that Palm will only release 400K phones on the 6th of June, is this true? What is the release date of the SDK? How much will the Store cost to join? - My first iPhone app is on its way, but I’m still interested - TIA.
Comment by Luke — May 23, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
I am in agreement with everyone waiting patiently for access to the SDK and wishing Palm would release it. It seems that some were given preferential treatment- which is Palm’s right. It just seems like a lot of people might have gotten short changed.
Comment by Andrew — May 24, 2009 @ 12:49 am
I try to stay on top of all news about Palm Pre and webOS ever since January but don’t think Palm has talked much about Apps Catalog and especially the way developers will be able to sell or give their apps for free through Apps Catalog. I’m not even sure any of the Palm-related news sites/blogs has been asking this question.
What I’m worried about is whether the acceptance in the Apps Catalog will depend on developer’s country. I suppose it’s not easy making sure each developer in the world with internet access is able to develop an app, get it into the App Catalog and earn from it’s sales (for example, not everybody can receive money through PayPal) but I hope Palm is working towards that
Knowing I probably won’t get an confirmation about this yet, I’m hoping that the App Catalog will know no borders, from the time SDK is released.
Comment by Dom Delimar — May 24, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
Listen, you guys need to get this straightened out. And given the crap Palm served us in the past, you have a Very Bad Rep to overcome here. I won’t believe what *you* say. It has to come from the three guys who *founded and then resigned* from PreDevCamp.
Fix that, and I’m go again to buy a Pre. And I won’t even be mad if I wind up waiting a month or two due to shortages, OK?
http://prepoint.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/new-palm-old-stupidity/
Comment by Mike Cane — May 24, 2009 @ 4:22 pm
PreDev is a start but not what you really need. You need to pull a marketing diamond out of the burning charcoal. Palm looks endangered right now. Your Linux OS is what the community has been asking for yet you hold it back as if that is going to help you. You are quickly becoming not so special. Nokia has put lookalikes on the market, Iphones are scheduled to release better and their lookalikes glitter to the masses. Giving Sprint the only access was also a big mistake. You immediately loose developers with other phones. Put out a new model available to everyone. I also think opening up your OS and development platform to the public domain, like Linux ought to be, would create a ground swell of support. I hope the platform is built strong enough to support that. Resolve your security issues and let it loose soon or it may all be moot when you go into Chapter 11.
Comment by Eric Wolff — May 25, 2009 @ 7:28 am
Im sorry for the following in advance, but it needs to be said.
Why haven’t you released the SDK to a wider audience? (as a simple example)I work for a very large web company(pushing 20gbit/s avg, on the low end) and no one here has any idea what to make of this situation. Your less then 2 weeks away from releasing your shine or die product and you still refuse to release any information about the SDK. There is a reason the youtube videos of your FREAKING EMULATOR are getting watched so much. Palm, you are shooting yourself in the face if you think you can pull an Apple and wait a year(or a month for that fact) to release the SDK to the public. WE ARE DEVELOPERS!!! We are arguably the ONLY people who plan on buying your phone that understand there will be issues and bugs. WHY CAN’T YOU GRASP THIS SIMPLE FACT? There does seem to be some good news though, you do realize that launching with a lesser core feature set then RIM/WinMo/Apple/Android would be suicide. Get off your high horse and embrace your developer community, or loose it forever to Apple/WinMo/Android/RIM. Why should I stick around and wait any longer for a system that CLEARLY works(you have shown demos of apps built by pandora,fandango,etc. over a month ago), but your just too
chickenstubborn to release it? I might even be happy with a TIDBIT of news on the situation, but there is nothing. I hope you rectify this situation very soon, I really want to develop for webOS. What I will not do is be forced to take a back seat to bigger companies just because you think they deserve preferential treatment over your core developer community. I hope you fix it very soon for your sake, you have already wasted precious months screwing yourselves over by not releasing it. Just think of all the wonderful apps that could have been written by now if you released it a month ago. Time is a precious resource, not only to you but to me/us as well. I don’t want my time wasted any longer. Please issue some news so we can all take a breather and make our pending decisions.Comment by Matthew G. — May 25, 2009 @ 11:51 am
At least there is some response, I hope it’s not too little too late. Every day the SDK is not released is one more nail in the coffin. With all due respect Palm, you are acting like the Pre is already a success… and from where I sit that could not be further from the truth. Release the SDK this week or risk losing more and more developers.
Comment by Sammi — May 25, 2009 @ 6:52 pm
I’m another JavaScript/Mojo developer. I am also a member of the Palm Developers Network and I signed up for the Pre’s early access program (not accepted though
)
The funny thing is that though I am a developer interested enough in the Pre to sign to develop for it, I am not a rabid fan boy. The result, I never heard of “predevcamp”. In fact, other than the “Rough Cut” manual release, I have heard nothing from Palm in the last 3 or 4 months.
Palm, it’s up to you to market to us, not the other way around.
Comment by Stan Slaughter — May 26, 2009 @ 5:47 am
“we’re always listening to your ideas.”
I DON’T WANT A PHONE! I just want another PDA, dammit. One that doesn’t fail 3 times within a year, like my T|C.
Comment by Robert — May 26, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
Looking at this from a testing standpoint (as the SDK is currently in what I would call a private beta test). I have participated in many private and public beta tests of different games, and from my experience the games that have a successful testing phase usually have the most success commercially.
I would highly suggest that Palm give a release date for the SDK as soon as possible. Additionally, it may be a good idea to release a public beta of the SDK sooner instead of a final version of the SDK later. This way developers can get their feet wet while allowing for momentum to build within the development community. Otherwise, if the final release is a long way off Palm may starve off developers who may not return once the SDK is released.
Finally, I would also suggest that Palm create a set of forums for developers. Their needs to be a channel where developers can go to discuss various different issues regarding development on the webOS platform. This would also help solidify a community which I believe is a necessary component to allow for a wide diversity of applications and not just a handful from a few commercial shops. If individual developers have a place to go and communicate, you will see not only a increase in the number of developers (and thus applications) but quite possibly high quality applications as well.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents.
-Joshua
Comment by Joshua — May 27, 2009 @ 6:15 am
I have to state that after applying unsuccessfully to be in the developer program and not receiving a reply, one email resolved that and will help with my local devcamp. Thanks Palm!
Comment by Andrew Morrow — May 28, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
I have to echo all the other comments re:the SDK non-release. The features of the Pre are great .. but this is weakened severely by the lack of the SDK … and SDK which is clearly working. How can we be expected to buy a phone for which we can’t develop .. and for which there is no current guarantee we will EVER be able to develop? We’ve all seen vaporware and marketing before. Be different…release the SDK PRE-”pre-release” and announce the date NOW. PLEASE, we want you to succeed .. and to succeed with you .. but all humans..even developers..need some degree of certainty and closure. “Date” us, don’t just “sell” us…please!
Comment by Jim — May 28, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
Last PDN comment here was 5/7..with a 6/6 Pre release date.
At the very least, it’s clear that Palm hasn’t made Pre development enough of a priority to assign adequate staff resources for the SDK dev and distribution. This doesn’t inspire confidence for anyone looking to invest their own time and STRATEGY on the Pre. Remember, this is mostly a world of small developers .. and small developers have BIG opportunity costs.
Palm should remember that this is now a highly competitive market .. and banking on “baked-in” features .. even features as attractive as Synergy and multi-app functionality .. without providing a CLEARLY reliable third-party development path on the device is unwise at best.
Apple could get away with it for a few months .. but that was in a far less developed marketplace with a game-changing device.
With a viable SDK, I can hear the one-word Pre release comments from develops now…”Pre-mature”.
I have high hopes for Palm and the Pre. Please drop whatever small features need to be dropped from the SDK to “wrap and release”. Add them later. Even a barebones SDK with ” chunky function” will beat no SDK pre-release by FAR!
We have hope..now give us confidence.
At least, give us a comment or two.
Best of luck!
Comment by Jim — May 29, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Palm Pre and webOS news round-up…
With the launch of the Pre just a week away , new device features, webOS developer news, and other interesting…
Trackback by Pocket.Info - Mobile News — May 29, 2009 @ 11:14 pm
Andrew Morrow said:
I have to state that after applying unsuccessfully to be in the developer program and not receiving a reply, one email resolved that and will help with my local devcamp. Thanks Palm!
Who did you e-mail and how was the situation resolved?
Comment by Andrew — May 30, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Here is the deal… June 6th is upon us.. I was planning on buy a PRE just to experiment with several apps I have in mind.. (I really like my 755 Treo and my Sprint service) Been reading and waiting for over 2 months now… Simply said… NO SDK… NO PHONE…. and if this goes on much futher, I will just have to retrench with WinMo.
Comment by Gary — May 31, 2009 @ 4:37 am
Dear Palm, Inc.,
It’s been a week-and-a-half since this encouraging post, and any good will you’ve earned from it has all but evaporated. While I respect the position you folks have described in this post, I’m also in agreement with the other developers who’ve commented here that you are well on track for committing corporate suicide.
All the strength and beauty of this new generation of products your organization is poised to release with the Pre lies in the fact that, like the iPhone, it represents a brand new platform for development — and with support from app devs, it has the potential to truly shine.
If you plan to release yet another “cool phone” and sell a few thousand units before your company slumps off into oblivion, then good for you — you’ve had a great run. But if you want to truly become a serious player in the Mobile space once more, your ONLY hope is to reach out to Developers like NO ONE ever has — not Apple, not RIM, not Microsoft, not even Google — getting us involved with every minute aspect of this revolution.
Therein lies the secret — the razor edge between your success and failure. You need to pitch this to us like a REVOLUTION — the next great leap forward, the step that will take the Mobile Device from a must-have tool, to an absolutely essential personal computing platform.
And like any good Revolution, if its going to succeed you need to reach out to the People and generate a passion and enthusiasm — you need to “rally the troops” (app Devs) and make us feel like this Revolution belongs to US, not just YOU.
Sincerely,
Brian Lacy
Software Developer
Technology Enthusiast
& Palm Pre Owner (as of June 6th)
Comment by Brian Lacy — June 3, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
I’ll put it a bit more blunt than the users above:
Release the damn SDK, you freakin’ idiots!
::cue trendy bop-bop music::
“If you want to check snow conditions on the mountain…tough cookies, Palm didn’t release the SDK prior to launch. If you want to check how many calories are in your lunch…tough cookies, Palm didn’t release the SDK prior to launch. And if you want to check where…exactly you parked the car…tough cookies, Palm didn’t release the SDK prior to launch. Yep, there’s a few apps for a very limited demographic of users only…on the Palm Pre.”
::music slows and commercial fades out::
Comment by Doc Lee — June 4, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
No SDK = NO Phone Purchase
Comment by Dan Lambert — June 5, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
Well said @Gary, except you would have to be an idiot to look at WinMo when iPhone 3 drops Monday with $99 handsets at WAL*MART before school starts.
What a launch!! The CEO of Sprint declared the Pre to be his company’s “coming out” party, there is no master list of apps or details about things like tethering, no SDK, no official post on the Palm Developer “Network”, nothing about the Eos, the date picked was just in time to assure it’s the brunt of jokes during Monday’s keynote (at http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/)…
Comment by Tom — June 6, 2009 @ 9:59 am
…wow, caustic devcamp stew brewing here!
First Principles: Chicken or Egg? Let Palm launch the baby first so that there will be users demanding developed applications (egg).
Second: Developing brittle apps by reverse engineering instead of published API’s just breaks Pre-API developed apps upon the first OS update.
Third: The sooner you start the longer it takes!
Everyone relax get your requirement specs tightened, build test suites and core engine functionality in Java. You’ll be so much faster to market than whining against the market momentum.
Comment by Rex Riley — June 6, 2009 @ 10:27 am
I came here to get a SDK for the new Palm Pre but found nothing.
Why? I thought you guys wanted people to create stuff for your new gadget?
Comment by Andreas — June 6, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
Congratulations! Sales VP says the SDK will be available soon *cough cough*. Look forward to it. My first iPhone will be submitted in one week. Congratulations to me too.
Comment by Luke — June 6, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
The Palm Pre has been released and no new information has been released about the SDK. What in the world is going on? I thought this new and great Palm is supposed to have a better relationship with the developer community? Why would you guys still be in secret mode over something that can either make or break the platform?
I am getting really frustrated over this. I’ve been following the Palm Pre ever since it was announced at CES, just to watch you guys giving out the SDKs early to names that are big enough to recognize.
Thanks guys!
Comment by Ali Scissons — June 7, 2009 @ 10:22 am
Dear Palm,
The Pre has been released by the SDK has not. We, the developers, are who made the palm platform the force it was back in the day.
Don’t be like apple and screw is over.
Comment by Jonno — June 7, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
I have my Pre now, but I don’t have the SDK. However, I do have the iPhone SDK. When will you make the SDK available to the public?
Comment by Wesley — June 7, 2009 @ 7:41 pm
I have my new Palm Pre and I LOVE IT. However, as a developer I am really, really concerned about Palm’s future. This new phone is truly marvelous - bravo Palm. However, I don’t believe Palm has enough resources to compete in a closed model against Apple, Android, and RIM. Also, Microsoft’s .NET phone will be late to the party, but given that they bought most of the brains at Danger, it is likely to be a pretty good OS and it will definitely have good development tools. As a small developer, I don’t have enough resources to target all of these phones and their different development paradigms and systems.
I was at the Google I/O developer conference last week. Google is doing a really great job of providing tools, tutorials, etc. for Android and this is all open source. Google made a very big push for developers to embrace HTML 5 features. In fact, they gave Palm about 10 minutes of a keynote to introduce the Pre, WebOS and Mojo to the gathered mass of 4000 developers. This was the best exposure to developers that Palm has received and it was delivered by Google! PS: Google gave _every_ developer at I/O a free Android phone (the HTC phone that will end up being the TMobile G2). They did this to encourage development for the Android _open source_ OS. Google is putting out lots of time and money to create an open, standards compliant mobile platform. The fact is, they don’t care is it’s Android - they just want to advance mobile standards and capabilities so that adoption is fast. This encourages advanced apps, which encourages mobile internet traffic that Google can monetize.
Palm, I want you to succeed. I don’t want to have to develop in Objective C! I have a few suggestions for you that I hope you will listen to - I’m sure you are already pursuing some of these are have considered others. These suggestions are all about increasing choices and minimizing risks for developers so we feel comfortable investing our opportunity time on your new platform. I think many developers like Palm (ignoring the SDK issue), but we have limited resources.
First, You need to go open source. RIM and Apple are already way ahead. Android is open so adoption is happening fast - I heard there will be 12 android phones out by years end and all carriers in the US will have at lease one. Microsoft has the resources to stay in the game. Their purchase of Danger gives them lots of really, really good mobile experience. You need the input and help that an open community can provide.
Next, developers we need more options than Javascript for development. I really like Javascript as a language. However, in practice there are problems. While technically Javascript is portable, DOM and other differences across browsers make this environment problematic. Mojo probably avoids this issue, but also limits portability - we will be in a proprietary environment. The interpreted nature of Javascript means that most errors must be caught at runtime, which creates many quality problems. So, on desktop browsers I’ve chosen to use Java (via GWT) and AS3 (via Flex) because those environments share several qualities that I find very important. First, they offer excellent portability for my code. Indeed, I using GWT I can share code between my client and server (or I could target the desktop with Java Quickstart). With AS3 and Air, I can target the desktop. I have lots of options and that makes me feel good. Second, Java and Flex offer excellent tooling, including static (compile time) checking, hosted source level debugging, unit testing, etc. All of this allows me to produce quality code and applications in a predictable amount of time. Again, this makes me feel good.
In this regard, please work closely with Google closely to make sure Google Web Toolkit applications run well on Pre’s browser. I know HTML5 support is a priority for you. However, currently the Pre cannot run the GWTCanvas demo application (at http://google-web-toolkit-incubator.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/demo/GWTCanvasDemo/GWTCanvasDemo.html). This demo runs well in Android and iPod browsers. It also runs in all major desktop browsers (not well on IE, but somewhat…). Because GWT targets browsers, it provides a highly portable development solution. Because of the great Java tooling, like static compilation and analysis, source debugger, junit, Guice dependency injection, etc, very significant applications can be produced with high quality and productivity. GWT is an awesome tool and it is open - work with Google to make sure it target’s Pre’s browser optimally.
The second way to work with Google is to get Google Web Toolkit to produce ‘native’ WebOS apps. GWT is a brilliant tool that increases productivity, quality and portability over traditional AJAX development. It is optimized for creating significant client side applications. There are ways you can expose Mojo to GWT (Javascript overlays, etc.) GWT 2.0 will have a remote, plugin based hosted debugging capability. Modify the plugin to make a native WebOS app that provides that hosted mode functionality (remember, it’s _all_ open source). Leverage this open tool and enable a huge number of Java programmers to work on your behalf. If you can do this, I promise I will develop apps for your phone.
Finally, work with Adobe to get Flash working on your platform. Adobe is committed to getting Full Flash 10 on all mobile platforms. Work with Adobe to integrate Adobe AIR into your platform. Between them, Flash and Flex offer great development tools for designer/programmers. The resulting applications are way better then anything that can be produced in HTML 5 at this point. Flash/Flex development is mature - you will have lots of developers available on your platform. If Adobe really can get Flash 10 on these mobile platforms, then that will give us developers another low-risk way to deliver apps for Palm. If you can do this, I promise I will develop apps for your phone.
Obviously you have produced some very nice apps with Mojo as it stands. However, by opening up the platform to Java and Flash/Flex developers in a way that makes portable mobile applications possible, you will minimize the risk for developers and so increase the number of developers that target your platform.
Comment by Ed — June 9, 2009 @ 12:02 am
Pre is Out, SDK nowhere to be found, this is beyond radicoulas, I am developing apps for BB, and Iphone, both APPLE and RIM will bendover backwards to do their best to attract developwers, and what does PALM do? NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, why do you keep high hopes on that upcomming book? whoo needs that crappy rough cuts book chapters anyways if there is no SDK to work with, palm(Mojo) SDK is not a rocket science to require a book, common now, …
if you had released SDK week ago I would already had written some apps on it… but instead you are trying to align that SDK release with book release? is that it?
even if phone is released to public and still hiding the SDK, F… this, I am moving back to BB, whata bunch of …..
Comment by Levan — June 9, 2009 @ 4:59 am
PAAALM! You’ve again ignored our demands to give a release date for the Pre SDK!!!
Comment by Karl — June 9, 2009 @ 12:52 pm
Hi,
I am on my Pre. Love it… Please release the SDK. I want to see my app in a card!
Thanks!
PS: does anyone who can help us read this? It seems like a black hole.
Comment by Andrew — June 9, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
Launch a new platform without an SDK? Tick.
Launch a new platform without timely and frequent communication to developers? Tick
Launch a new platform without a visible full-time community manager? Tick
Launch a new platform without developer forums, wiki, blogs? Tick
I am the tech advisor for mobile development at my company. The current mobile platforms we target are WinMo and iPhone, with a smattering of RIM work. I had previously pushed Pre quite strongly as a ‘watch closely, is shaping up to be a strong contender’.
Now when push comes to shove I have nothing to show my CTO. Can we develop on Pre hardware? No. Can we prototype anything on an emulator? No. Do we at least have documentation? No. Are Palm making efforts to engage the development community? No.
I am sorry to say that I (like many in my position I suspect) will be retracting my position and recommending to my company that they refocus their forward strategy on Android. Palm has dropped the ball here, this kind of ineptitude with respect to the developer community bodes very badly for your market position in the future, and it is worth neither my company’s time nor my professional reputation backing what seems now a very high-risk proposition.
This saddens me, as I’ve been a strong proponent of the Palm since back in it’s early days, even developing apps for the Pilot. Goodbye Palm.
Comment by SleepyFox — June 10, 2009 @ 2:18 am
I was really hoping Palm would keep a dual model, where you could get trusted applications from the catalog or allow for “untrusted” apps by putting in custom repository addresses.
The Google Android project continually released all the various version of their SDK before release. Many developers had to retune their apps all the way up until final.
I got the Pre on day one and it’s a great platform, but you can tell it was rushed out the door with a lot of features missing and a lot of stuff that’s obviously going to come from updates.
Maybe Palm just wants to get everything nailed in its core apps before release the SDK. But the Pre by itself doesn’t do a lot. The apps that come with it, like the twitter app, really suck. They are only releasing two apps per day in the catalog and their from big commercial vendors (who probably paid for early access. Also, most of their apps also suck).
Open it up to the community and you’ll be given an instant enthused audience that will be right there, experimenting and creating new software right with Palm.
The Apple app store is horrible. You shouldn’t have to jailbreak a phone. It’s like buying a car with the hood welded shit.
Comment by Sumit Khanna — June 10, 2009 @ 5:13 am
Ok palm, almost another week gone by, no SDK. You are about to lose another developer. How long until you only have the fanboys left. Regardless of how easy it is to develop for, your digging a hole you won’t get out of easily.
Comment by JJ — June 11, 2009 @ 11:58 am
Palm folks…where ARE you? The silence is astonishing..
Comment by Jim — June 14, 2009 @ 8:57 pm
Wow, 10 days after release and the ignoration from Palm continues full force. Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep developing for iPhone (and selling app’s like mad).
Easy enough, one less platform to support. What a shame, as far as I can tell, Palm wants to suck.
Comment by Kevin Timm — June 16, 2009 @ 11:55 am