Tag: app catalog (Page 2 of 3)

Palm Isn’t Ready To Admit Pre Sales

September 19, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Earlier this week Palm held its Q1 earnings conference call for the 2010 fiscal year. Most everyone in the industry was looking forward to the call because it meant we might get some hard numbers around the Palm Pre sales speculation. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and from the sound of things the Pre may not be doing the bang-up job some people thought.

You may recall this quote from Roger McNamee, one of Palm’s most prominent investors.

You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.

Well, according to Palm, the company shipped 823,000 units this quarter, and its carrier partners “sold through” 810,000, of which the “vast majority” were the Palm Pre. Now vast could mean anything, but for argument’s sake let’s put Pre sales at 500,000. That’s really not bad, and better than some analysts expectations, but Palm and its investors obviously overstated the success of this phone from the beginning, and that can’t make the company happy.

Palm goes on to say that success isn’t tied to a single device and that the WebOS platform will be the golden boy of the smartphone industry. Blah blah blah. Unless Palm can woo some talented developers and stop squelching the ones it has, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the company change hands in the next few years (see, I’m getting good at this research thing).

Mobile, News

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Palm Rejects Its First App

September 12, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

In its bid to compete with Apple, it looks like Palm will be embracing even the worst of business practices. Despite an already meager offering in the App Catalog, Palm has banned its first application, NaNplayer.

The problem came when Palm noticed the app using an undocumented API call. It’s actually a call already used by the integrated music player to create playlists, but its not something Palm wanted to see in third-party apps. In a response after the media got wind of the story, Palm’s Developer Community Manager said the API was scheduled to change in future versions of WebOS so current apps shouldn’t rely on it.

I suppose that makes some sort of sense, but why not let the developer know and encourage them to make the switch instead of enforcing the change through rejection. If the API is going to break playlists, wouldn’t it do the same in Palm’s current app? And if Palm can write a way to migrate those playlists couldn’t NaNplayer’s developers do the same?

Regardless of the what-ifs, NaNplayer’s developers have said they’ll be going the homebrew route with their app, a decision Palm apparently supports. I suppose that’s better than suggesting homebrewing is illegal.

Apps, News

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Android Has 10,000 Apps

September 7, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Thanks to the folks over at AndroidLib (and the detective work of the good people at TechCrunch) we now know that Android has reached the 10,000 app marker. That’s a big deal, largely because Android’s biggest and best competitor, Apple with the iPhone, often touts its monstrous app library. For those of you counting at home, Apple’s got something like 70,000 apps these days.

But Android may start to get a leg up as more and more devices turn to the mobile OS. The number of Android devices already announced for next year is way too long to print here, and solid app support is one of the reasons the platform is so popular. As more apps get developed, we can hopefully start to see more talented developers head that direction.

I know, I know, I’m usually only so jubilant about iPhone apps. Honestly, though, I want Android to continue to succeed. The few times I’ve used it I really liked the OS, but more importantly I want the iPhone to have some serious competition. Right now, Android is the only thing that comes close. Yes, Blackberry has a huge installed base, but feature to feature, Android is the most comparable OS with the best long term growth potential. Here’s hoping the Android Market continues to improve.

iPhone, Mobile, News

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Palm Still Lagging Miserably Behind

August 18, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

So the Mojo SDK is out, meaning Palm should be ramping up to start some serious competition with the iPhone, right? Wrong. In fact, they’re just starting an ecommerce program that will allow developers to charge consumers for the applications they (the consumers) download. The program will launch in beta in mid-September.

I tried to be skeptical when I heard critics heralding the death of Palm. I knew things weren’t great for the company, and I’ve written a few posts expressing my general discontent with how they’ve handled the launch of what could be a really great phone. With every new decision/announcement I think, “now they’ll get it right,” or, “they must have learned by now,” but they clearly haven’t. I realize the infrastructure to support a phone on the scale of the Pre costs a lot of money and takes a lot of people. But Palm could have thrown a lot more effort into understanding the post-iPhone market and positioning their device accordingly. Hell, just getting people an early SDK would have been nice. Embracing the homebrew scene would have been nice. All of the things consumers did to try to make the phone a success would have been nice.

Instead, Palm remained tight-lipped on progress regarding the SDK release and slowly leaked out details and new features to try to excite developers. It was a promising phone at launch, but assuming developers would wait for months to get a chance to enter a fresh app ecosystem was just crazy. Now we’re 3 months past launch, the phone isn’t selling particularly well (not well enough to save the company for certain) and Palm is starting a beta ecommerce program.

The only good news in this little mess is that they’ve decided to get the program to the public while it’s still in beta instead of waiting until December or so for a full release. It’s still too little, way too late, but at least we can look at the glass 1/8 full instead of 7/8 empty.

Apps, Mobile, News

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Palm Pre Mojo SDK Finally Released

July 17, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

I hesitate to even post this, as it does little to assuage any of the app deprived pain you Palm Pre users are experiencing. It’s a step, albeit just one little step, toward getting some new functionality out of your phone, so I suppose it’s worth mentioning. Palm has finally released the Mojo SDK for WebOS to the general public.

That’s great news, right? Well, kind of. Unfortunately Palm won’t be releasing any of those nifty new apps being developed until the fall, which means more waiting for an already bored Pre population. Sure, you guys have downloaded almost 2 million apps, but they’re the same 30 apps. Meanwhile other mobile catalogs continue to grow at alarming rates, leaving you Palm purists wondering when it will be your turn. Not yet, my friends. Not yet.

Personally, I’ve not spent a lot of time with the Pre, but the guys at Ars Techica have, and Jon Stokes has some interesting suggestions for fresh apps. It’s funny he mentions the dialer issue, because every Pre user I’ve talked to has the same problem. Could be a gold mine if one of you developer types found a way to replace it.

Oh, by the way, Palm hasn’t issued a date for app release. September’s probably the earliest we’ll get anything.