Over a week ago, Palm announced on their Palm Developer Network blog that they had expanded the Early Access Program to double its size. By today, it's estimated to have doubled in size again. That's great news, but some developers are still chafing under the relatively small numbers.
So folks are asking questions. Questions like how many people get invited at a time, and what criteria are used when Palm chooses to invite developers to the program. Well, Chuq Von Rospach, the Developer Community Manager at Palm, recently respond to these questions and criticisms of the program by saying:
The primary limitation we have today is the capacity of our developer area, which wasn’t built to support the number of developers who want access. That’s actually a good problem to have, and we have a team working on bulking up the infrastructure, too. There are some really interesting things just over the horizon here, but it takes time.
If you think about it, if we let too many people in too fast and everything does the fail whale, we’ll get yelled at and developers will give up on us. I realize that there are some developers who are tired of waiting — and I fully understand — but I hope they’ll come and take another look at us later when we finish the SDK up and get it out to everyone. If we mess up the SDK or the tools, we risk driving away lots of developers and convincing them not to come back. It’s a fun and challenging balancing act.
Our current admission policy is fairly simple: we’re accepting in applications based on how complete and detailed the applications were. I’ve broken that up into a few different piles of applications, and within each pile, we’re admitting them based on when they sent us the application. Right now, the most detailed applications are going in; when we finish that, we’ll grab the next set and do the same until everyone is in the program or we release the SDK to the public and end the early access program.
Let's be honest here, there will still be those who complain at a lack of a public SDK, but Palm has made it clear for a while now that the SDK wouldn't go out until after the device was released. Things are constantly changing (as noted by changing details found in the O'Reilly book) and it only makes sense for Palm to want to get all their ducks in a row before releasing everything to the public.
Comments
yep, still no response on my application so far.
While I agree with the logic, Palm still needs to be pushed and needs to address this immediately. I'm not asking for 100s of apps at once, but they need to start slowly adding more apps to the catalog while everyone's still debating between the Pre and iPhone 3GS.
Well, this is good to hear. I should have applied earlier, but glad it's not just random and those that signed up early and complete get a heads up.
But I agree with emeraldayotte, they need to get something trickling out soon. This week is suppose to have a small "flood" of apps. Hopefully that rumor is true.
And another note, I hope while they don't have too many apps, they get working on better battery management so we can get some longer use out of these upcoming apps...
@Palm
Hundreds of people are already working on their apps. We don't need your SDK or your network. All we need is some kind of documentation. Please give us SOMETHING. This way you guys can work on whatever you're doing and we can work on our stuff while waiting on full access. Thanks.
I agree, a weekly trickle of one or two apps(5 would be better) until the sdk release should be enough to mitigate many of the fuds.
I got accepted in but never signed the EUA as it simple states you cannot distribute any programs made with the SDK except via the App Catalog. That's what turned me off to it.
As far as I understand this attitude, and share it, the App Catalog is currently the only way to distribute apps for the pre (the only for the regular consumer), so Palm can (currently) write nothing else into the EUA.
I surely hope this will be revised in due time, and they have their regular way to install apps sorted out soon.
we are out here writing & hacking away. When Palm sees $ escaping because we are doing an end run, the speed of access will increase.
It's a shame they couldn't "get their ducks in a row" before they released the actual device to the public. Beating the new iPhone to the market was obviously their goal. It may have been good for the carrier, but does not seem to have been a good thing for the end user.
I hope Palm is paying attention... as of now we have 20 homebrew apps and only 30 app cat. apps. at this rate the homebrew apps will outnumber the app cat in a matter of weeks, maybe days...
Where do I find those homebrew apps?
Well, I'm waiting for the SDK too
But anyone knows if there will be a way to program on another languages, like C/C++ and Python? (as webOS is Linux based, I think that it isn't a problem to program on that languages, if a compiler is present)
[]'s
I posted this on July 1 http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/190017-sdk-release-continues-ramp-...
The "developer area" not having the capacity is a red herring. Their app approval process is a red herring.
Apple released their SDK months before people could actually submit things for approval. And they released it to everyone at once.
Google released their SDK something like a year before the G1 was released. They fixed bugs in the SDK after the first release.
Follow the others leads. Release the SDK to everyone. Limit access to the app approval process if you must, but get the documentation and tools out to everyone.
Your window is closing fast. Unlike the iPhone, I think developers will lose interest in developing for the Pre with time rather than having their appetite grow.
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