After checking the data in their webOS App Gallery, Palm-lovin’ website PreCentral has calculated that there’s been over thirty million downloads from the App Catalog.
Palm have released their Plug-in Development Kit Beta for developers and is hopeful that a veritable torrent of top notch 3D games and other native Linux apps for webOS will follow in its wake.
Now available for your downloading pleasure at the Developer Centre, Palm is giving this one a mighty push, keen to promote their webOS as a gamers’ platform, and releasing it at the Game Developer’s Conference.
Palm will be strutting their stuff at the Game Developer’s Conference next week and their presentation will focus on their Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) – a set of tools designed to help developers create graphics-intensive games for Palm’s webOS.
The PDK is said to let developers rewrite mobile apps designed for other platforms in double quick-time, with iPhone apps reputedly ported over in “a matter of days,” with no degradation in performance.
The original Facebook app for the Palm Pre was a seriously underwhelming affair, so Palm webOS users so should be whooping with social networking-related joy at the news of a substantial update.
The slick new app offers an enhanced Inbox and the ability to view photo albums from all your friends, not just the photos in their news feeds.
Finally, Brit Palm Pre users can enjoy having their phone as up to date as their American cousins, with the v1.4 webOS update being rolled out across Europe and the US.
The update adds adds video capture to the Pre handset with the ability for users to edit and upload them directly to YouTube, Facebook, or share them via an e-mail or an MMS message.
The news from across the Atlantic is looking grim for Palm, with sales well down on initial estimates, and a profit warning issued – and if things are bad there, it’s hard to imagine how much worse they must be in the UK.
Put bluntly, you’re more likely to see a juggling polar bear unicycling down the High Street than see a Palm Pre being used in the UK.
So what happened? Why did such a great phone not get the attention it deserved in the UK?
App store analytics firm Distimo has been rummaging through every major app store in town, producing an interesting set of comparison figures.
Want to know which store has the highest percentage of freebies? Read on…
Accompanied by a flurry of flapping flipcharts and clicking ballpoint pens, tech stat fiends Gartner have just unleashed their annual figures for worldwide mobile phone sales to end users.
The collection of apps available in Palm’s App Catalog store in the US has now risen to an impressive 1,500 apps, and is growing at a rate of more then 10 apps a day.
On top of the 1,500 officially available apps there’s also nearly 450 ready for downloading from the Homebrew catalogue, giving Palm Pre and Pixi users a wide range of apps to play with.
The guys at PreCentral managed to bag some hands-on time with a GSM Palm Pre running an early version of Flash, and have shared the video with the world.
According to an OTR Global report, no less than three different sources have confirmed that all future orders of the Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus are being suspended as of today (Wednesday).
As reported in BGR, one of the sources said, “The decision is very sudden, and Foxconn was told to reduce all February Pre forecast to zero on Wednesday and nobody knows whether shipment will resume in March.”
Apple iPhone users may have as much chance of seeing Flash on their phone as Portsmouth have of winning the Premiership, but Palm webOS users should soon be lapping up the Flash goodness on their handsets.
According to an article on PreCentral, Palm employees at a launch event in France last night, “specifically said that Flash would be available in February.” So, that’s some time in the next three weeks.
Telefonica – owners of the O2 mobile network – says it has shifted 2 million Apple iPhones in Britain and reckons the future’s bright with good Palm Pre sales keeping the cashtills kerchinging.
Apple’s original mobile phone partner in the UK, O2 lost its exclusivity on the iconic smartphone last year, which it first offered for sale in November 2007.
The iPhone is now available on Orange, Vodafone and Tesco Mobile in Britain.
The Palm webOS has been given another boost in its gaming abilities, with the release of VisualBoyAdvance – a free, webOS-based emulator for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games.
VisualBoyAdvance (VBA) is an open source emulator available for numerous operating systems, and it’s now been successfully ported and enhanced for webOS.
Palm’s webOS is slowly establishing itself as a mobile gaming platform to rival the best of them, and developers Gameloft have just released videos showcasing their latest offerings for the Palm Pre.
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