With updates coming out recently from Palm for their two webOS smartphones (Pre Plus and Pixi Plus), Palm is working to engage developers to create additional applications for its App Catalog. In order to keep up with the iPhone App Store and Android phenomenon, they are working h ard to keep up in the smartphone market.
The competition is brutal, with Apple executive Jon Rubinstein revealing updated versions of their own webOS smartphones at the CES show in Vegas last week. The Apple phones will be marketed through Verizon Wireless at the end of the month, and the two Palm smartphones will also be availagble, through AT&T.
Since Palm released the Pre and Pixi smartphones last year through Sprint Nextel, Apple’s iPhone has taken their spotlight. As a result, Palm has upped the anty by releasing their new smartphones with extra features and new designs, including double the storage capacity of the Pre Plus, moving from 8GB to 16GB, still less than the iPhone, but a big upgrade by any means.
Some of Palm’s new apps are already getting press, such as their HotSpot app, which enables the devices to located mobile wifi locations and use that connection to tether with other Palm devices, aka a local wifi cloud network. Additionally another app, a video application with uploading functionality, is looking promising.
Palm still trails far behind the iPhone and Android as far as apps, with the iPhone having over 100,000 apps and the Android having a still impressive 20,000-plus apps available. Palm hopes to attract more developers with the announcement of their browser-based Ares IDE, and their Palm Developer Center which enables developers to submit approved apps directly to the Palm App Catalog. Thus far developer reception has been positive, with reviewers stating that “The overall feel for the IDE was as good as native App Navigation, code editor, widgets drag-n-drop was all slick! I made a hello world app in under 10 minutes.” They have also praised the IDE’s ability to create native apps using familiar technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Palm’s own APIs.
