Bring Us Your Apps, and Sell Them, Too
Submit your webOS applications today for the Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta starting in mid-September
Starting today, you can submit your apps via email for consideration in the Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta program.
We’re initiating the beta e-commerce program so we can test the experience for both webOS app developers and users. This is an opportunity for you to submit your app and to market it to the webOS user base before we open the program to all developers later in the year.
All developers can submit both free and paid applications today for evaluation by Palm. Details of the program are the following:
- You can charge a one-time fee for the download of your application.
- Initially, the user base for e-commerce will be limited to the United States.
- Developers will receive 70 percent of revenues generated through application sales (less applicable sales taxes).
- webOS users will pay for their application purchases using credit cards and will download apps directly to their webOS device.
Acceptance Criteria
Palm will accept apps into the beta test program based on the following criteria:
- Apps should be useful and engaging to users.
- They need to have an appealing design and user interface aligned with Palm UI guidelines.
- They are written specifically for webOS and not delivered through the browser.
- They leverage webOS platform and device capabilities, for example, notifications, multitasking/background processing, location services, accelerometer.
- They have acceptable performance and response time on the device; apps with slow UI response or sluggish performance will be rejected. Applications that consume excessive power on the device will also be rejected.
How To Submit Apps
Follow these instructions to submit your webOS apps for evaluation to become part of the Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta program:
- Send an email to catalog.ecommerce.beta@palm.com. In the subject of your email put your company followed by the name of your application (e.g. subject: My Company – My Application).
- In the body of your email, include the following:
- Your Palm webOSDev user name.
- Whether the app will be free or paid; if paid, indicate the price (minimum of US $0.99).
- A description of your application.
- Attach the application package (.ipk file). If you’re going to send us a set of files in .ZIP format, please note that our firewall will delete the attachment unless you rename the file to use “.plmo.zip” as the attachment’s suffix.
- Send a separate email for each application.
Submission Guidelines
- Test your application. Be sure to put them through your own QA process, assure that they are optimized for performance, and reviewed for compliance with the Palm User Interface Guidelines as well as the Palm Application Checklist.
- Consult Top Tips For Developing Great webOS App UIs as well as Performance Optimization tips.
- Check that your app and app submission are complete; incomplete apps and app submissions will not be considered.
If your application is selected for the beta e-commerce test, Palm will notify you via email and provide additional instructions.
Follow webOSdev for more information as soon as it is released!
29 Comments
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How about recurring billing?
Comment by Peter — August 18, 2009 @ 6:08 am
Its about damn time!
Comment by Manuel — August 18, 2009 @ 8:17 am
What about Try before you Buy? How, if at all, can a Developer set such a system (which was quite successful with the PalmOS line and the WinMO devices)
Comment by MyTreoREP — August 18, 2009 @ 9:19 am
What about Try-Before-You-Buy. How, if at all, will this be possible? This was a very successful thing for PalmOS and WinMo and statistics show that most Apple iPhone programs are bought and then forgotten (which would be less if there was try-before-buy)
Comment by Mytreo.net Moderator — August 18, 2009 @ 9:24 am
Will users have to repeatedly enter their billing information or will there be a unified account managed by Palm that handles one to two click billing?
Comment by Scott — August 18, 2009 @ 10:13 am
Should be interesting to see how open the store is compared to the Apple app store.
Comment by Justin — August 18, 2009 @ 10:13 am
Palm App Store Opens…
The Palm Developer Blog has details of the just-opened Palm app store. Maybe they’re going to be the ones to……
Trackback by UFies.org — August 18, 2009 @ 10:16 am
Please consider accepting PayPal for payment since it is universally accepted worldwide, is the number one payment vehicle for Internet users, is more secure than using a credit card and, it encompasses multiple forms of payment including VISA and Master Card. Thanks!
Comment by Lee Meyer — August 18, 2009 @ 10:19 am
So can I submit my free applications to the mentioned (ecommerce) email address above, too, or do I have to use another address?
Comment by huh — August 18, 2009 @ 11:06 am
As a Sprint carrier customer who wants to keep the account without quiting or duplicating services by going to AT&T just to get the experience of the iPhone awesomeness; all that can be said now is: finally! This seems to be the right direction to get the Palm Pre moving (one reason, due to my interest now seeing if my present phone is worth replacing.
Comment by Mark — August 18, 2009 @ 11:08 am
Palm now reviewing paid applications for the App Catalog, sales begin in mid-september…
The Palm Pre has taken a lot of heat for its limited App Catalog, which, months after the launch of the…
Trackback by Mobile News — August 18, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
Did I get that right? “User base for e-commerce will be limited to the United States” - does that mean only US developers can apply apps or only US based users will be able to buy apps? Please, I’d like a clarification on that.
Comment by Dom Delimar — August 18, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
App Store wars, part 231…
Apple App Store, Palm App Catalog, Blackberry App World, Android Marketplace — can you keep track of all the different on-device application storefronts already?
After a longish period of having just a few applications featured in their App Cata…
Trackback by Mobility Mind — August 18, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
It is about damn time…I am an owner of one of these phones…and am ready for decent apps to be available…Please Palm…HURRY UP WITH IT!!!!!!!!
Comment by John — August 18, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
+1 for recurring billing and what about trials? way to handle them?
Comment by Gothy — August 19, 2009 @ 12:26 am
Palm now reviewing paid applications for the App Catalog, sales begin in mid-september…
The Palm Pre has taken a lot of heat for its limited App Catalog, which, months after the launch of the…
Trackback by Rss:s — August 19, 2009 @ 1:20 am
Thanks for opening this up - looking forward to seeing a bunch more apps available to all!
Comment by Greg — August 19, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
The iPhone supports an I/O port for specialized data acquisition and display. How about the Palm and WebOS?
Comment by roblake — August 20, 2009 @ 6:07 pm
Wednesday News Roundup, August 19, 2009…
We’ll catch up on two weeks’ worth of news stories this week. Over the last two weeks a number of interesting things happened, among them preDevCamp wound up, Palm opened the App Catalog for Beta submissions and a tempest in a teapot surro…
Trackback by Pre 101 — August 21, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
Just wanna ask if the previous PalmOS programs are compatible with Palm WebOS? just like programs in windows xp wherein they are compatible with windows vista. Or is this a completely different OS? hope you could enlighten me about this. thanks
Comment by prince — August 22, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
It sure would be nice to be able to install some homebrew apps without having to put my Pre in dev mode.
That’s a real pain when I want to see what apps are out there which Palm hasn’t been able/willing to include in the AppCatalog.
Comment by Benjamin — August 28, 2009 @ 9:08 pm
Has anyone received notification if their app has been accepted or denied yet?
Comment by Chris — September 5, 2009 @ 4:59 am
I am an owner of a palm pre and I think that charging for software to make the phone more useful is a horrendous idea. I’ve paid enough for this device and service already. I lnow that I won’t be downloading anu apps with a price tag.
Come on palm put some apps out there that can put thos device to ise
Comment by Randy123 — September 5, 2009 @ 5:17 am
Yes — the apps being added to the catalog each week are part of this program, but we have a lot of apps to work through, and we’re doing so as fast as we can…
Comment by Chuq Von Rospach — September 5, 2009 @ 9:50 am
No, webOS is an entirely new environment, so palmOS apps can’t run in it except by using the Classic emulation app.
Comment by Chuq Von Rospach — September 5, 2009 @ 9:51 am
What is the process for code obfuscation? I would like to ship an application with the JavaScript compressed and obfuscated. I realise that this won’t stop the most persistent hackers who want to copy it, but it will put off 90% of people. However, I understand Palm will want to inspect the code, so I’ll have to provide an non-obfuscated version too.
Could Palm simply agree to obfuscate all JavaScript code that is put in the App Store? This would take the burden off developers, and allow it to be an automated process.
Comment by Shane — September 7, 2009 @ 1:09 am
If you would add FM and AM radio to your line of cell phones you would stomp the competition. Especially AM so that people can listen to talk radio.
Comment by JohnDurbin — September 10, 2009 @ 9:32 am
Chuq,
When Palm enables Flash 10 on WebOS, can you please remove the restriction that prevents app to be delivered through the browser?
Comment by Bruce Hopkins — September 12, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
Recurring billing would be FANTASTIC but probably goes along with Trials.
Comment by Geiger — September 22, 2009 @ 11:33 am