A peek at two powerful new pieces of the Palm webOS platform

Palm webOS developers -- and Palm Pre owners looking for mobile apps that go even further -- got a peek today at two important new pieces of the future of the platform. 

This evening, Palm announced that the webOS developer program will officially open in December. The program is designed to provide developer’s with flexibility to distribute and promote apps in a way that works for them. The program will support distribution of both free and paid apps through the Palm App Catalog. Through a self-certification option, the program will also offer web-based distribution of apps for developers who wish to leverage existing web channels to reach their customers directly. And for developers of open source apps using this option, the $99 program fee is waived as Palm’s way of thanking the open source community.

Earlier today, webOS took to the stage at Adobe MAX 2009, where attendees were treated to a demo of Flash Player 10.1 running as a plug-in for the webOS browser. This forthcoming version of the Flash plug-in is designed to support webOS functionality, including multi-touch gestures and the phone’s accelerometer. 

Jon Zilber

Comments

[Cnote1287]

Typo....line 6. developers shouldn't have an apostrophe =)

[Base]

This is great and all but I will throw this Pre out the window if I cant record video and forward a text message soon. This should be the ONLY focus for palm in their next update (1.3?).

[Vidhya shankar]

The waiver for Open Source ones is cool! Which license must be used for that?

Also, there's no different fee for enterprises?

[Matt]

The App catalog is a complete failure UNTIL the App space limit issue is fixed on the Pre!

[Joe]

Definately would like to see text forwarding and personalized texttones you can set to each contact. Video recorder would be nice too. A flash player would take this phone to the next level. Keep pushin.

[Nick]

One thing I just learned is that developers on Android can't take advantage of the microphone of the device. I think this is one place where Palm has the potential to create some apps that their competitors are incapable of. The app I use everyday on my iphone is the guitar tuner...

[D]

Palm, will you upgrade the Pre's WebOS to use a more secure backup service so you don't have the failure T-Mobile and the Sidekick experienced?

[Brian]

Cnote1287:

There's already a homebrew app that lets you record video. Last I checked, audio was the problem. I've got several silent movies on my Pre. :)

[Kari R]

Would like to see the ability to have audible alerts for emails...and the button to light up to signal a missed notifications, be it phone call, text or email...