One of the things that we liked about the App Catalog in webOS 1.3.1 was that it would be able to tell what device it was running on and subsequently adjust the apps listing to compatible apps. As it turns out, the App Catalog also gained the ability to figure out where you are and adjust the App Catalog accordingly. That’s nice and all if the App is something that is only available in a specific country for a reason (e.g. YPmobile for the US).
When it’s not cool is when the filtering cuts the European App Catalog down to a pathetic sixty apps, and even that number varies depending on the country. The problem lies with how App Catalog submissions work. Developers submitting an app will find that by default the country and language option selected is United States and English. While most apps have been and will continue to be created in English to reach the broadest possible market (nearly as many people in Europe speak English as in North America).
Problem is, there’s no option to check off English-language app submissions for countries like Germany or Spain, where 65% and 25% of the respective populations claim English as a second language. But yet there is an English option for Mexico. More so, the problem is that the default option is only the United States and only English. If developers don’t select for distribution to other countries and other languages than those respective App Catalogs won’t get access to the app.
Like we said, there are some instances where we can see this kind of selective submission being a good thing. But for the vast majority of apps there’s no reason for them to be confined to the US. Let them be free to roam the world. It's bad enough to deny them apps because their paid apps (time to expand that, eh?).
At the core, the issue is the limiting app submission options, in that you have to select countries and languages. Our suggestion: take an approach like this: have two columns, one for language and another for country - with the default set to worldwide. Then give the user with the phone the option to filter by language instead of handicapping entire countries because their official language isn’t English. You don’t need to know how speak or read a lick of English to play solitaire.
Thanks to gizmo21 for the tip!
Comments
Oh well, It's great to live in North America! At Least till our Govt converts us into some other country from some other continent.
can developers now sell paid apps to europe?
I'm not at all happy with the current situation. It is one thing STILL not having access to paid apps but to then have our app catalogue crippled even further is frankly a joke. This is one of those situations were common sense should have applied but not at Palm apparently. How can they possibly expect to be successful if this is the way European customers are treated particularly with all their talk of parity? So I can now forward messages? Thanks a lot I already had a patch for that. I now have a cripped app catalogue? Wow. Nice to know you guys care. I feel sorry for the users who have lost apps they used daily as a result of the latest update. It sure is great to be a second class citizen. I was one of the more positive posters as well...
Palm has no common sense. They're stumbling and bumbling their way through this whole thing. They seem to be incapable of planning, testing, or even thinking about the effects of they make. I think they're as surprised as anyone else when something like this happens.
Anyone who thought the infusion of people from Apple would solve Palm's problems should realize by now that's not happening.
The app catalog is an embarassment.
It's bad enough as it is that we can't even pay for premium apps but sixty apps?! That is quite frankly pathetic.
What's worse is that Palm Pre's UK website is showing off so-called apps like TubeApp, which doesn't even exist in the app catalog! It is astonishing that there is not a single app that shows me the goddamn tube map in a city like London. That's how bad it is.
1.3.1 Completely breaks the App Catalog for those of us who bought the unlocked GSM Palm Pre and activated it with a Sim card other than O2 or "approved" networks.
The App Catalog sadly is no longer available unless Palm changes their minds and allows access
This is confirmed by a Tweet from @chuq:
http://twitter.com/chuq/status/5990411925
Anway, thank goodness we have Homebrew!
That situation is totally unacceptable!
I had several apps on my Pre which were previously marked 'submitted for North America only' in the app catalogue, which worked perfectly over here, even location based ones. My impression was they would be re-evaluated for the rest of the world, as the app catlogue is still in beta, and the note would disappear. Oh-no, turns out the apps just disappear...
Further it was a kind of clear to me that with worldwide OS version communality the same would be valid for the app catalogue, thus we would finally have paid apps. No. And not only that, but nearly no apps left. Great!
Palm, frankly, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? (Implying there was someone who did something like 'thinking' before making this incredible stupid decision!)
This has to be just a short term situation, otherwise, for me this is a no-go for the plattform. Seriously. By the way, the Droid has just been released on o2... great marketing you do for Motorola, Palm!
"By the way, the Droid has just been released on o2... great marketing you do for Motorola, Palm!"
bye, bye palm!
The other thing about an inaccessible App Catalog is it really frustrates users who have bought Classic and need to re-download that app - they can't do it since the catalog is "unavailable"
The Precentral thread on this issues is here:
http://forums.precentral.net/gsm-pre/216548-app-catalog-unavailable-afte...
We've been running the Pre in Canada for over 3 months and are still limited to a small amount of apps too.... its getting pretty sad :(
Can we have paid apps please. We've been waiting patiently.
PalmGear has been happily selling apps to people from all over the world so why is this such a big issue for the Palm App catalog?
Incomplete sentence:
"While most apps have been and will continue to be created in English to reach the broadest possible market (nearly as many people in Europe speak English as in North America)."
The Pre (in GSM form) feels so incomplete compared to the HTC Hero, Iphone 3GS, Nokia E71 and Treo 680! Limiting the app catalog to a measly 60 apps for non-US customers only shows that Palm is having a difficult time rolling out updates to different parts of the world. This is getting really frustrating.
Total Number of Apps here in Austria: 0
"App Catalog nicht verfügbar. Versuchen Sie es später erneut."
The App Catalog is currently unavailable, pls try again later...
how stupid can one single company become?
well, until they fix the app install limit, there's no use anyway. THere are many apps I want to try and buy but no room!!!
"well, until they fix the app install limit, there's no use anyway."
Well, frankly, WRONG!
And I'm slightly loosing my understanding for making this, for the mass marked nearly non existant, issue ever and ever so prominent here.
I`m disgusted considering how much I paid upfront for this handset and how much i`m now paying monthly, I now have access to LESS than what I did when I bought it. I`m watching this closely but i`m already considering other options and its good to hear the droid is out, now might be a good time to cut my losses and sell seeing as the pre price on ebay is still high.
If they don't get their act together soon it will be the last time I ever buy palm
What is even worse than cutting down the number of the apps is that this means that the App Catalogue is only available in the countries where the Pre is officially sold. So if someone has an unlocked Pre, bought in Germany, and s/he is using it in Finland, for example, s/he cannot access the App Catalogue.
Since it is most unlikely that the Pre will ever be sold officially in every European country, this situation is exteremely annoying. Palm is effectively limiting its potential customers to few markets only.
This policy, combined with the fact that there still is no news when (if ever) the Pre will become available through the European Regional Palm Store unlocked, means that I shall have to say goodbye to Palm. When my Treo 680 ceases to work my only option will be the iPhone.
Dear Palm,
What are you thinking in disabling access to the App Catalogue in countries other than the "official" ones where the Palm is sold. You are deliberately annoying the early adopters who are the ambassadors for your product.
I have a German unlocked Pre, purchased at full price from O2, activated in Switzerland, and now I have zero apps available! I can't even download Classic which I have paid for!
Until you clarify this policy in the right way, I and many like me, can no longer recommend the Palm Pre or Pixi, regardless of how good the technology is.
I cannot believe how stupid this policy is. Whoever made this call should be fired.
I wonder what this will do for sales and ultimately to their stocks. I know for a fact that I wouldn't have even considered the pre had this update been released prior to me buying it and I doubt i`m the only one thinking this. Really sorry to hear other euro countries are worse off than the uk
Hey guys I'm new to the board and had a question. I went in to Sprint today and talked with them about the Best Buy deal (hoping they would price match - no harm in trying). He brought up a couple of things that I was a little fuzzy on. He told me all the pre's that Best Buy sells are "refurbished". Is that right and what does that mean? I don't think I'm buying that (think he was a salesman, trying to sell me something).
He also mentioned a poor customer service record for Best Buy and their mobile customers.
Thoughts?
Champions Online Resources
first ur on the wrong page....... lol i cant believe the guy actually said that, u probably need a second opinion, dont forget to post it, but not here.
this is really inacceptable.
60 Apps of which 58 are completely useless.
thanks. -.-
Edit: i think every person buying a pre in Germany is speaking English as a 2nd language.
I think something has actually happended over night, but dont get too excited but the UK app store has increased to 85, and now can get almost all the apps I had before especially top stocks and missing sync...
I think something has actually happended over night, but dont get too excited but the UK app store has increased to 85, and now can get almost all the apps I had before especially top stocks and missing sync...
Spotted this morning that app store is now up to 85 since last night. Some old apps are back including missing sync and also top stocks.
I think its time for european users to mass email palm tell them exactly what we think of them, F. you plam!
they don't know, that most of us european people speak english well - they're just a small, local distibutor.
speaking of "row" is a hybris that can only be at us-americans.
:-(
Hasn't you, Palm, thought that there should be a classification "Region: International, Language: English" for apps submission in App Catalog?
How incredibly stupid situation! Have you thought in what situation you're putting now thousands of people, who have bought sim-lock free German O2 device, and using it wiht their native operators around the Eastern hemisphere? Myself - I'm at the moment in Latvia (three weeks aft purchase of device in Germany), next week moving to New Zealnd for couple of weeks, then - to Australia, then - back to Europe. And I use local carrier sim's in my device - cause that's my business specifics! (I especially loved my previous Trēo's because of ease with which you could swap sim cards there!)
Shame, shame, shame on you, Palm! :-(
Wel it´s time to come back nokia, wait for me N900 i´ll be with you at the end of the year!.
Goodbye palm and your stupi** policity.
I was considering the N900 before I bought a Pre and recent events have had me thinking...
Bring on the warez, that's what Palm is actually stimulating with their incredibly stupid insane actions....
When I submitted my app, I had to figure out this issue. The problem here is that paid apps mean money is changing hands and these things like governments like to tax those things called transactions. Palm has to get this figured out within the bounds of each countries maze of tax law. So from that perspective, I can understand. But I don't understand why free apps are shutdown. If it's free, it should be default, be open to all. One of my free apps that is making it's way through the submission process shouldn't be open to the world - it's a free demo version of my paid app. No reason to show it where it is not available for purchase. When the paid app becomes available in say Germany, I'll have to put the free demo out there as well.
But this does make me realize something. I've removed my homebrew version from distribution. That may have been an error. My homebrew version was closer to the demo than the paid version, but it functions. And my foreign users are currently able to do at least something.
Palm is present in those countries. And, at least in Germany, they have a store on their site that sells accessory and apps... so, for the on device app store every information and the required legal arrangments should already be available / easily to be set up.
For the situation with selling in different European countries, the European Union is very close when in comes to trade arrangements / taxes etc. Not too far from how the different states in the USA relate to each other in this respect.
To your apps, I personally would welcome to have the free demos in the app catalogue even though I have to wait untill I'll be able to purchase. This was alredy the situation untill Palms insane decision, and didn't create a problem.
hitting the news sites:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Update-fuer-Palm-Pre-sperrt-US-Ap...
OK its now time for ALL gsm pre users to write a letter to palm and tell them to pick up there boots or we will be walking and bringing our experiences with us. im sick of being behind, im sick of webOS being at a sub-beta level, im sick of the lack of apps! I bought the pre because i wanted to watch the development of the phone grow and grow and features be added more and more, but instead of growth i have seen next to no changes in the latest firmware and now to make matters worse they are now cutting DOWN on the number of apps available to me?! Palm is really not trying here and it gives users like myself a sense that my phone will never be as good as an iphone even though its could be a much better device. That is all
Do you know wich is the e-mail to write to palm support?
Becouse in the official web i only see the tlf number and the chat option.
~60 apps in the catalog. Well that's not much but at least you got a working app catalog. Bought a unlocked Pre from O2 to use it in Switzerland. Since the upgrade to 1.3.1, the app catalog is unavailable.....
Another disappointing news article about Palm. I dont see how the Pre can live. The HTC Hero is looking better every day I read this site.
it's not palm's fault. it is Derek Kessler who once again wrote a negative article. so he is guilty! :D
I was seriously considering the Hero, but after using it in comparison to the Pre... I can't help myself, but this device feels now on generation behind...
plus remember Americans can live in other countries too... if I lived in another country I would prob still want the English version of an app...
Dear Palm,
I understand you feel like you owe Sprint a lot for your comeback and that you are bound by contracts. However, crippling your webOS-phones in every market where you don't have exclusivity just to prevent people from wanting to import the GSM pre for use with ATT and Canada doesn't very bright in the long run.
Why are you making it so very hard for us in Europe and the rest of the world to give you money for your products? We want to do it, so, so many of us, but these practices are really making it hard. Just start selling the Palm Pre in Europe online to the markets where you haven't already trapped yourself with the outdated exclusivity model. Then open up the apps process so that the apps are targeting the whole world as default but the developer can restrict that should s/he want to.
You already have the infrastructure as well as legal and tax framework to sell in Europe - use it! Again, why are you making it so difficult for us to give you money? These phones would sell themselves if you would let them.
Sincerely
KallistiMan
I got very disapointed with that change , specially after looking so forward to this update
I think that ALL the applications should be accesible for every one unless there is a VERY good reason for not doing so
The country and languaje should only be used for set the default filter in the App Catalog but that the user should be able change those and see the applications for other lenguages or countries
Cheers
I got very disapointed with that change , specially after looking so forward to this update
I think that ALL the applications should be accesible for every one unless there is a VERY good reason for not doing so
The country and languaje should only be used for set the default filter in the App Catalog but that the user should be able change those and see the applications for other lenguages or countries
Cheers
yeah... @the page and @the pre must be a option to select apps per language and/or country.
And some App writers should have a multilanguage version of their apps.
i'm shure if the app is useful there will be some pre users wich helps translateing.
...and now I just read that the HomeBrew apps are limited to "beta test" before entering the app catalog! So we are truly screwed. Thanks!
Now this one is HUGE! I mean - huge screw-up for Palm...:-(
App Catalogue not working at all, almost impossible to find WebOS Doctor on German support site, no out-of-the box PC syncing, hardships with data migration, mean HW (how many replaced units & touchstones?), no support for Pre browser even on Palm's own sites, like palm.com & palm forums!
Palm: u've got to pull your act together fast for us - non-US customers of yours, otherwise this - 8th Palm device of mine - will become last one and least-time used. And I'm damn sure I'm not alone out here feeling like this...
Palm - it is not enough to be technically brilliant. You guys are shooting yourselves in both feet here. Think it through. Another disappointed European user.
I'm very disappointed, specially after looking forward to this update so much.
I believe that all the applications should be accessible unless there is HUGE reason for the contrary.
The language and the country should be only used as the default filter in the App Catalog, but any user should be able to change this filter for see the applications in another language or country.
What is especially shocking: having licensed "Classic" for my bunch of ebooks and PalmOS-Apps under german WebOS 1.1.3, after the update to 1.3.1 it isn't listed anymore in the Catalog. Money for nothing? Classic has been exclusively featured by Palm as the way to keep the investment in former software. Now? I'm really considering to downgrade my Pre back on 1.1.3 with WebOS-Doctor again. Thank you, Palm!
Really disappointed to hear this news. I am expecting to take delivery of my new Palm Pre GSM tomorrow. Living in New Zealand and purchasing a unlocked O2 version I now can look forward to having zero apps indefinitely. I agree with everyone above that Palm needs to realise that we would like to support what could be an amazing phone.
This is so disappointing. Not only do we not get paid ones, but we get less in total.
Way to go Palm. Way to spoil an otherwise great experience. Hopefully this won't last too long.
Hello
This is realy bad from Palm. I life in switzerland and i haven't any app. So my missing sync is not usefull until I couldn't download. ;-(
Palm sad that pre is not sale in CH means the APP is not support for this country.
2 weeks ago i thougt Palm Pre will be a got tool for working with but with this policy its not possible.
Thank Palm for this sad idea
Regards
Floonder
everybody said the same, but I've to said it again, perhaps I feel better...
Dear Palm,
I was a very loyal PalmOs User over the last 10 years. But now...
What do you do with the appcatalog? I bought app 'classic' under 1.1.3, but now with 1.3.1 I can't install it anymore.
Why?
I bought in Germany from O2, full prize, official unlocked, runs within O2 - but haven't a chance to get classic back for which I've already paid!
Additionaly the backup in my palm-profile wasn't restored - all data loss!
Unbelievable - shame on you Palm!
These guys are just fucking idiots. I paid for missing sync. now it does not work anymore unless you upgrade through the app catalog. Well, in the app catalog, there's no missing sync anymore. So: no syncing for calendar any more!
How could anyone be so stupid and cut off over five hundreds apps (while there are 100000 in the app store for the iPhone)? instead of looking for bringing in at least hundred or so per day . . .
I thought buying a Palm Pre would be a smart thing - well it turns out to be an expensive fault.
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