Speaking at a PreDevCamp session, Palm’s Developer Community Manager Chuq van Rospach eased one fear expressed at many-a-preDevCamp regarding the iPhone App Store’s glut of 99¢ apps. Van Rospach was quoted at TamsPalm as saying:
“We’re also trying to build some things into the catalog … and different ways to get your app into the catalog and get it noticed. … how can we help people with good apps get that kind of notice and marketing … [we want to make sure that] the really good apps get that notice, not the cheap apps, and fighting that whole race to the bottom is one of those things that we want to see if we can do a little differently.”
More thoughts on this excellent news after the break!
So what does this mean to us? Like I noted last week when discussing Apple’s App Store stumbles, once Palm’s App Catalog gains monetary capabilities there’s going to be a rush of 99¢ apps, though Palm should take measures to ensure that the Catalog is not bogged down with gobs of cheap apps. So long as Palm makes an effort to highlight quality applications, developers should be able to get by charging more (rightfully) for their apps. Palm OS users are already used to a world where a good app costs $5-$10, and most wouldn’t flinch at the thought of paying such for a webOS app.
As Tam Hanna noted, it’s possible that Palm’s hand has been forced in the matter. Without the widespread adoption of the Pre like the iPhone at the launch of the App Store, Palm has to be willing to let developers charge more for applications (with fewer customers, higher prices will be needed for better margins). And given Palm’s blunders over the past few years (Cobalt OS and the Foleo, to name a few), some developers may be less than willing to risk an application for webOS without a guaranteed return on their investment.
Our take: while the idea of every app costing 99 cents may seem nice from a user perspective, the truth is that it's just not tenable. Let's face it, there aren't and likely never will be as many Palm Pre phones out there as there are iPhones, so the size of the market is going to be smaller. Even if that weren't the case, even with the iPhone's massive scale, iPhone developers are feeling the hurt from the race to the bottom.
We don't know exactly how Palm is going to ensure that quality apps that happen to cost a bit more are going to get proper attention, but we're happy to hear that Palm is not only aware of the problem but thinking about solutions. Yes, more expensive apps may mean more money for Palm, but it also means more money for the developer, and that's the key.
So in a few months when you're showing off an app on your Pre to an iPhone user and they say "Mine does that too, but instead of $2.99 I only paid $.99," we hope you reply, "Well my app is going to see more frequent updates because, well, the developer is eating."
Comments
Good ro hear this. Palm OS apps were pretty expensive IMO (but many worth it). Can't wait till the surge of apps in the store :D
Of course they want to have more expensive apps get more exposure, as Palm will make more money from them. And as a developer I would rather a very usefull 10 dollar app get the spotlight vs. a 99 cent useless app.
I think it's great that Palm wants to keep quality high, and developers happy and paid.
I also hope that they can keep the apps in that $5-$15 sweet spot. I have nightmares (especially seeing the price on some of the apps that are currently available) of being stuck in the WinMo bizzaro universe that I was in previously where there is a vast ocean of terrible apps that cost $30 or more, and if the app is less than that, you might as well not bother.
"I think it's great that Palm wants to keep quality high, and developers happy and paid."
Not only that but they are ready to learn from the App Store's mistakes. The advantage of not rushing to market with an App Store. I'm on an iPhone but the least you could do is think of me and say a small prayer to the gadget gods for me as you use Google Voice.
I concur, as a former PalmOS user I am willing to spend a few extra dollars to get a high quality application. That being said, I have in the past been duped into buying an app that had no trial period and ended up not being everything the screenshots showed it to be. As long as I can try before I buy, I'm in.
For me, there will be no difference regarding my willingness to purchase an application between $5 and 99¢ apps. Both are cheap dates.
I tend to think twice about anything over $6, and three times for anything over ten dollars.
Would I pay $20 for a viable DataViz Docs To Go suite that I can sync with my laptop and allowed me to store template spreadsheets and word processing files? You betcha.
But I have forgone all my Treo games (Bridge, Cribbage, Klondike) and utilities (Formulas, Loan Payment, Target Plot, etc.) because I could not justify the cost for Classic (I can understand a higher cost for all that work, I do not question the fairness of the costs; just reporting that it passed my cheapness quotient).
For most Pre users, the big thing that will sell apps is some way to confidently identify apps that will do what we want, are elegant, and affordable.
I am hoping this Blog fills that niche but if I were Palm, I would supplement the online App Catalog with a web page allowing full screen sorting of apps, sampling or videos, and independent evaluations.
Confidence more than price will make the sale.
harlan
Harlan has pretty much stated my thoughts as well!
Have you visited the Apple App Store lately? Oh... nooo!!!, now I get it.
Cheap does not equal bad.
All of the noise from Palm in the last few days has given me real encouragement.
It is clear Palm has now shifted its focus to Apps. Initially it was getting the device out there and patching the O/S (and I hope they continue with the O/S patching) but it is clear they are now facing the App challenge.
It's perfect timing becuase without apps this thing will wimper into the dark if it hits the European/Asia markets without a decent app catalogue.
O/S patrching and building an ecosystem of developers and apps is key. The O/S must be stable and feature ready (O/S updates) and the Mojo SDK, the developer rewards, the app store, the support for the app store and finally THE PR (PALM SORT OUT YOUR ADVERTS) MUST BE READY for the GSM launch.
Anything less will spell disaster.
I have a great idea: Palm should allow Precentral access to apps in advance, and then Precentral could use some volunteers to run the apps through their paces. Then we could get some real user reviews before we actually buy them from the app catalog. Of course, a lot of those apps may already be in the homebrew forum right now! =)
So in a few months when you're showing off an app on your Pre to an iPhone user and they say "Mine does that too, but instead of $2.99 I only paid $.99," we hope you reply, "Well my app is going to see more frequent updates because, well, the developer is eating."
But that doesn't make any sense. As the story states, there are more iPhones, so if an app is one-third the price, but the developer sees 4X more registrations, he's still better off with the iPhone version.
I hope Palm forces all apps to be priced at dollar-increments ($1, $2, $3, etc.)...this pennies crap is stupid.
Amen to the pennies crap - it's just plain annoying - just so that marketing guys can say "not even XX".
Good Story. I, too, hope most phone customers can look past the initial price of applications and see the value of the application. Another example of how the iPhone's "quantity over quality" attitude has, IMO, affected the market's perception of what is important when looking at the situation.
If classic was $15 it would be installed on my Pre already. It it was $20 I would be just about ready to grab it. But as it stands now I just can't justify the cost. Especially since I would need to purchase the apps that I would run under it anyway. So now I wait hoping that in the near future some of the apps I want will get ported. For me most apps will need to be in the Free - $10 range. After that I really need to have a strong need before I'll spend more then ten bucks on an app.
What would be nice is to offer a lite/demo version of any app that costs say more that $5. That way users could demo the app before sinking in the cash. It would also be a great way for developers to test their apps and get some spot light.
And as others have said, cheap does not mean bad. There are some apps that should be cheap. For example, Tetris should not be a $5 app, it should be $0.99. It is still a great game, but not worth the $5 imo.
+1
I'm still worrying about the quality of the apps. Correct me if i'm wrong, but are not the apps written in HTML CSS and Javascript?
Come on Palm, i want Lower access to the powerful hardware. I mean look at the apps that the iPhone has. There pretty powerful.
you can do almost anything with the Mojo SDK including 3d if you want to put the time into it.
I would be more concerned with protecting the developers intelectual property ie closed source application code.
However palm seems to be looking into that.
That good to know. I don't know to much about it but how can you do 3d and stuff with HTML ect..?
In html you can use a canvas tag that gives you the ability to draw graphics onto a page using javascript. In reality there are a lot of powerful things you can do using AJAX if you want to put time and effort into it.
Most people are arrogant and say how stupid html/js/css is because they dont get/know/understande html 5. Mainly because html 5 isnt finalized yet and there arent as many resources yet.
The Pre is not a iphone clone, that what you are all trying to create.
While I appreciate Derek's position and the perspectives of many in the thread, I'm not sure it's beneficial for Palm to get tagged with the phrase, "Well, the Pre is nice, but the apps are more expensive," in the word-of-mouth arena. If it is going to compete with the iPhone, then people are going to look at the price of ownership over the course of the phone's life, and that cost includes apps. I'd hate to see nickel-and-diming on apps costing them sales on the phones.
Just playing devil's advocate, but in this economy, people are more cost-conscious than ever. Nn app that is both cheap and good will attract more downloads by providing good value.
You bring up a good point about the economy. Break this down, you can get a huge amount of fart aps and lighters for your Iphone for the low price of $0.99, but don’t forget that the ATT people are paying 30 dollars a month for their Iphone plan. So when you show them your apps and they ask how much you paid for your $15 app, you can tell them after adjusting for the data plan you have actually just made $15.00 off the deal compared to them.
So I think more people will be choosing the Pre once their contracts are expired and they have a choice to switch. I know I am considering getting one when my contract expires.
How about Palm stops talking about the app-store features etc etc. and releases some damn apps already.
I'm sick of waiting. The SDK has been out for a while now, and you know they are just sitting on a ton of finished apps.
Right now, this phone isn't half as useful as it should be, and with Touch Pro 2 around the corner, palm better pick it up.
OH come on!! App catalog just hit what, 1 million downloads?
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/06/26/palm-pre-app-catalog-hits-1m-...
lets say only 1% were for your app and it cost 99c.. that's almost $10,000 .... palm goes nuts and charges 50% to publish that's still $5,000 for an preFart app... you built in 20min come on!
lets go nuts, using the same numbers say you have one of those "must have" apps, you spent months developing, hundreds of man hours on QC and R&D, and EVERYONE has to have this, like say they charged for pandora or something. Say 20% of the current numbers were from your app. That's $200,000 and same as before takehome is $100,000 that's still pretty good income, I don't think anyone will be starving because of the 99c download.
Is this good enough for a company's revenue? probally not, is it good enough for a single dev or a couple guys working in their basement? yea it is.
mind you, this is the FIRST WebOS phone, and it's only been out for less than 6 months. These numbers are just the tip of the iceburg
I'm hoping Palm will provide a way for people to release free open source apps. I'm not interested in making money off my app, but I'd like to be able to distribute it to a wider audience than just hackers.
That goes double for me. The most useful app on the Pre so far by an order of magnitude is the terminal from webos-internals, and that's GPL and zero dollars. I realize this site is made up largely of Palm devotees who just see the Pre as Palm's next product or comeback or whatever, but I see the Pre as the first smartphone I was willing to buy because it was on my chosen carrier and it runs Linux. I also do a lot of work with DHTML and think the development style needed for the Pre suits me pretty well. If my clients ask me to produce proprietary Pre apps as they've already asked regarding iPhone apps, that's fine, but I've been putting my own code out as free software since before the GPL was invented.
And honestly, does anyone really think that Palm's willingness to set the pricing bar higher means anything other than 3 dollar farting apps instead of 1 dollar farting apps? And what about the existing free farting (or other sound effects) apps already available as homebrew, and the dozens of other homebrew apps that are free software? If they're shut out of the app store, this news sounds to me more like a euphemism for "We're going to make it harder for guys with day jobs and no marketing department, and easier for old Palm developers and EA."
As for hiding your source code, about which a few posters have expressed concern.... either learn to write plugins in C (like the terminal.... which is, again, GPL, so if you use that as a template you'll have to share your source code anyway), or cry me a river.
"We're going to make it harder for guys with day jobs and no marketing department, and easier for old Palm developers and EA."
This sir is untrue, any man/woman who has a day job (even two jobs) has just as much of a chance to be successful as a large company. Infact this only means that the little guy has less to lose. If you spend 2 30 40 hours coding a nice app, you should be able to claim the code as your own and you should get paid for it. Big companies throw tons of resources on projects, but they all started out small at some point.
Most users of the pre wont be gaining root access, or doing anything with the linux internals. It would also be fairly easy for palm to break root access of the device and force users to build their own version via the webos doctor. If you could even get that to work. I guess that depends on how secure Palm wants the device to be.
My 2 cents on your Open Source comment... not to be combatent, maybe a discussion however
And those of us who do have day jobs, but write code and choose to release it for free? I really am not concerned with the parasites who write the 99 cent fart (or lighter; an old college buddy of mine has churned out about 7 of them on the iPhone) apps when free software developers are willing to release useful apps at no cost and with a free software license.
If Palm artificially keeps prices high by making it impossible to release free software through license restrictions or minimum price thresholds, the only ones who will benefit are the corporate developers and the parasites who develop trivial apps solely because of the lack of free competition. Charge whatever the market will bear for your work, but don't act like you're entitled to a lack of competition from free software.
I think with a down economy applications should be reasonably priced. If applications cost to much people will go else where to find an application within their budget. I find that by charging less for an application that fits into everyones price range, the developer will see more sales. I will NEVER pay more than $1.99 and in some occasions $2.99 for an app, no matter how much it is needed.
I'm with you on that one! Some applications are cool but I don't think many are 5+ dollars cool. Don't take that the wrong way though, if you have the cash and want to spend it on an app. then by all means, I'm just saying you won't see me doing that. 5 dollars is gas to the lake so I can soak my kids with a water shooting toy of their choice and have pictures of my victory (or demise) to look at for years to follow, find me an app. that'll do that and then maybe I'd spend more than 3 bucks. Maybe...
You know, this all sounds good in theory, but in practice is it going to be good? Are the apps on the Pre going to be useful? The only app on then catalog that interests me now is pandora. Nothing else really interests me. There are a few in homebrew, like Prepod. But thats it. I love the pre but there are so many things pointing towards the iphone. 32gigs compared to 8? I hate choices.
But they suck, those .99 are a good business strategy, but to the user is just means more garbage less good (if you have an iPhone or an Ipod Touch, please, tell me, not 10, not 5, but 3 good 99 cent apps... go!).
Camera Zoom - $.99
iEmoji icons - $.99
Pocket God - $.99
Apps chosen based on ratings by iPhone users.
Now- you're turn in the Palm App store ... GO!
I don't agree with this article. The 99cent apps is what made the iphone app store. Developers are making a fortune off of a $1 application - the same developers that were making peanuts on $20 apps on windows mobile before.
I think charging more then $5 for a good app on a mobile phone is ridiculous. (unless you're talking a specialized field.. aka medical, flight, etc..)
-mark
I think charging more then $5 for a good app on a mobile phone is ridiculous. (unless you're talking a specialized field.. aka medical, flight, etc..)
I can understand the desire to have cheap apps on the Pre. Hell, everyone wants to be able to spend less money per app, right? There's a price to be paid for it, though: Crappy apps. I'm not saying all 99 cent apps are crappy, but honestly, do you expect someone to put a lot of development time/care into a useful app that they have to then turn around and sell for a buck? I kind of doubt it. I can tell you this right now: DataViz isn't going to sell DocsToGo Pro for $1. Ditto for SplashID or eWallet.
I respect the work that FOSS developers put into their software. In fact, we wouldn't have WebOS at all without open source. But most professional developers want to be paid for their work (which is where the word "professional" comes into play). Sure, the restaurant finders and Twitter clients are nice, but if you're going to attract the heavy hitters to the platform, you have to be open to the idea of actually paying them for their wares.
50,000 apps in the App Store doesn't amount to jack sh*t if only a handful do anything useful, and those are made hard to find by the sea of mediocrity they float in.
(That's also why Palm needs to enhance access to the graphics hardware and accelerometer. There are a lot of useful things that can be done with those, which will shatter the perception of the Pre being merely a Web phone.)
"DataViz isn't going to sell DocsToGo Pro for $1."
First of all, DataViz doesn't sell DocsToGo for $1 on the iPhone App Store; they sell it for $5, or $10 with Exchange support. These are supposedly "grand opening" discounted prices. I don't know what DocsToGo Pro provides over and above that, but I assume its price would be higher still. So we're not talking about someone taking a dollar app on the iPhone and tripling it to $3 on the Pre. If they tripled their prices we'd be looking at $30 or more.
So what will they do when someone ports Abiword and Gnumeric (I'm thinking OpenOffice will always be too big, even with all the Java cruft removed) to the Pre? Is getting Palm to shut free software developers out of the App Catalog the only way proprietary software developers can compete?
This is pure spin mixed with good intentions just like the idea that Palm got a bunch software partners involved early on and they built great apps in four days. Saying that you are going to do something vague like highlight good apps or encourage good apps is saying absolutely nothing. It's like saying that someone elses mobile OS is bloated and slow and you are going to make it faster or that their battery life is short and you are going to make it longer.
"So in a few months when you're showing off an app on your Pre to an iPhone user and they say "Mine does that too, but instead of $2.99 I only paid $.99," we hope you reply, "Well my app is going to see more frequent updates because, well, the developer is eating."
i hope that i phone user's aren't getting the same update as we are,(if were paying more) that would suck. i hope future developers see that and give us a better product. on the same note apple might sell more of the app. and get just as high as a return rate as a pre user cuz palm's is more expensive, but sells less?
I agree with Harlan AND thedude but I'll happily pay $30 for stuff I'll use...Checkbook in Homebrew Apps is a great example.
They do need to step it up. PATIENCE would be a LOT easier of Homebrew didn't have at least triple the apps and counting....
Also...none of my homebrew apps crash my phone as often as Classic does
I have no problem with $10-30 range app store, it's what I've been tipping via paypal to some of the homebrew devs where I can.
If it helps devs maintain enthusiasm and support for webOS apps, I'm all in. I have no experience with apple iTunes billing model but as long as Palm can ensure security in the transactions, I can see myself buying a good number of quality apps if it gives my phone more utility.
What we dont want is 2.99 fart apps that people are conned into buying.
WHEN....WHEN.......WHEN?????????????
We'll it seems to be a love fest on here about shelling out more money for apps. I will keep-it-real. I decided on the Pre over the iphone simply due to the difference in the plan, and they fact that the Pre is different. I tend to believe alot of Pre users bought Pre's due to the affordable all-in data plan from Sprint. Its what there always advertising anyway. I also tend to believe that 99 cent apps still can be quality apps. The cost should not sway the quality. Palm should stay in their lane, and keep things more affordable and balance with quality like they have been thus far. Don't turn in to blood sucking Apple and At&t. Stand out and be different. After all its about the users, not the developers. Stay true to the dedicated users. Developers will come.
@ CTL Advance Who do you know thats been conned in to buying $2.99 fart apps? I know of none my self.
Also all this talk about junk apps on the iphone clogging up the good app well if they didn't let them in you guys would be saying that Apple is playing big bother so it's a lose lose situation there isn't it? In the app store there are "Featured" and "Top 25" sections you can go to to see non "fart apps". If the Pre is really going to be a open source and let any app in then most if not all of those "fart apps" will make it to the Pre app store.
I'm basically saying that peoe get conned into .99 cent apps now, if app prices go up rest assurred that crapware pricing will as well. I don't know anyone who hs bought a 2.99 cent fart app, but I know alot of people who paid .99 for crapware they used maybe 3 or 4 times.
Correction I know a few blackberry users who wasted money on ibeefarting or what ever it was called. Tht was over 3.00 when it came out.
Corrected Correction:
You know a few dumb-a$$ed losers if they paid $2.99 (or $3.00) for a fart machine app or a beer app. Blame that on your friends .. not on Apple, it's users nor the developers ... just the few you know. Let the buyer beware!
Yeah I do know a few idiots... But many years of drinking causes some people to get a little *exceus me* retarded...
I think the $0.99 app is one of the reasons the apple app store has been so effective. People are generally not going to think twice about purchasing a $0.99 application. You go and raise the price too high and you will price yourself right out of a sale.
Palm also needs to be careful about "over regulating" their marketplace. This is one reason why a lot of iPhone (like myself) users are looking for an alternative. If you build a good application the people will buy it.
Most of the really useful apps I have bought for the iPhone have been under $5.
Did I miss it or what happened with those Apps that were being developed Saturday at the PreDevCamp for the prizes? Weren't we supposed to judge them here on the site in the homebrew? Never even saw a news article about who won or anything about the apps that were made. What happened with this?
please price apps accordingly. i will pay for quality! i want the app maker to make money so they can keep making cool apps. nothing good comes from giving things away for free. NOTHING. I work and i get paid thus i have money to buy things so the next guy gets paid. breaking this chain is bad for everybody.
regards
"nothing good comes from giving things away for free," huh?
Guess you've never heard of this little "freebie" OS named Linux? Or the WebOS built upon it? Or the Palm Pre itself, and Palm's very existence today? Yeah, I guess that's all worthless, just because it stemmed from people "giving things away for free."
Thats why it has more market share than Windows....
Oh wait it doesnt.
Free software causes developers pay to decrease, the only way these companies make money is through support and they are lucky if anyone actually pays for it. Free = Good for Project manager (the people who decide if the code is Open Source) and bad for the developers who get paid less as their knowledge has been spread around.
I've been paid pretty well over the last decade to write free software. Just because you don't know how to make a living at it doesn't mean that smarter people can't.
A developer will make MORE money selling an app for .99 rather than $5. Not everyone has $5 to spend but most will spend $1 on an application.
You may have 1 person that buys the app for $5 and 10 that buy it for $1. I WILL NOT buy splashID or eWallet for $5 because i will only use it from time to time and it is not worth the investment. However if they sell the app for $1 I will buy it. They just made $2 that they would not have made if they sold their app for more.
Actually, I doubt you'd even get the chance to buy splashID or eWallet for $5. The versions of eWallet I've seen each cost at least twice that -- even for the iPhone version. (SplashID alone is $20 on iPhone.)
As for the frequency of use, I somewhat understand your position, but the value of applications like these isnt' that you'll use them every day. Their value is that on the rare times you may need them, they're there, and convenient.
You can always make the argument that you will sell more of a product for a lower price than you would if you charged a higher price. But the logic of that breaks down at a certain point. If I have a lot full of new Porches that I'm selling for $1000 each, sure, I'll sell a lot of them. In fact, I'd probably sell all of them, if I've got a good location. The flip side of that, though, is that if my lot holds 40 cars, even if I did sell all of them, I'd be bringing in less cash than one of the cars is worth.
Now, I certainly wouldn't want developers to bleed users dry, but a developer's time and talent are worth something. If a developer pours his/her blood, sweat, and tears into an app, and then they want to sell it, they're going to go for the venue where they can get the most money for it. In that kind of scenario, cheap apps lose, because whatever proportional cut in price you take (relativeto another platform), you've got to make that up in sales to make it worth it. If I can sell an iPhone app for 10x as much, that means I have to sell 1/10 the number of apps to make the same money.
That's why avoiding $1 apps in the App Catalog makes sense for Palm: Knowing that they can charge a decent amount of money for their app encourages developers to the platform. Going for quantity over quality (in a general sense), as Apple is doing, tells developers that their apps are really just commodities. It says, "Your app is worthless, in and of itself. Its ownly value is that it adds to the really big number of apps that we use to sell iPhones."
I wouldn't want to see Palm go overboard and start selling glorified Javascript pages for $30 in the App Catalog, but I think that applications that really go the extra mile to be applications, rather than just pages, deserve the support of users.
(Incidentally, I say this without any intentional bias towards developers. The farthest I've gone so far in the WebOS SDK myself is enabling landscape e-mail and a simple Hello World app.)
I have to disagree. Its not that there are a lot of $.99 apps its that there is no trial period. If there was a trail period and someone only wanted $.99 for developing the app there is no problem there. Even if we got bombarded with $.99 apps in the app catalog and there was a trial period the crap apps would be pushed to the bottom so fast its not even funny. Then Palm can look at disbanding apps that are crap or put pressure on developers to make better apps.
My co-worker purchased the Iphone the same day I got my Pre and he's been busting my balls ever since. Mostly because I pick up his phone everyday to check out the new apps he purchased (mostly for 99cents or free). He looks at my pre and says oh yeah, no apps and puts it back down.
Today he picked up my pre to look at the pictures and put it back down because the sliding motion from picture to picture was slow then it froze up on a pic.
$2.99 apps is just going to give him another reason to rag on the pre. I agree with the guy who mentioned most people bought this phone b/c of the sprint pricing. That's me, I'm that guy! I don't have money to throw at apps, but if it's 99 cents, then I can justify it to my wife and kid. Don't get me wrong, I'll pay more money for a good app, but all apps can't be in the $5-10 price range. I don't want to drastically raise my monthly bill with a purchase of one app a month.
I don't know about most of you, but I'm impatient. I'm giving this phone a year&1/2 and if keeps telling me I have too many cards open (when 1 or no cards are open) or if the app games arent comparable to the iphones, I will be FORCED to shell out the extra money for the Iphone.
I think Palm should've had their act together with a few game apps before putting this phone out or at least it should've been in the second or third update.
And what the hell is up with the Templates that just magically appeared in my photos this morning??
ok I think I said enough. Good luck Pre.
Well, as long as the price doesn't raise over $2.99 on average and $5 or $10 on the high scale I'll be fine. If MOST apps average around $5 to $10 and expensive ones are $20 then you're going to quickly see people moving to illegal means of obtaining software, like with Windows Mobile, because mobile applications generally just aren't worth that kind of price tag.
I just hope that Palm doesn't try to "filter out" the "crappy" apps.
What may seem like a waste of time to you might be exactly what I need.
Finding a way to make it wasy to _find_ the good apps == good.
Finding a way to not have the "bad" apps == a way to REALLY piss off developers.
If I write a small app which is useless to you but useful to me and some small percent of the population and it gets rejected for being "crap" I'll NEVER EVER EVER dedicate the time to write the great app I might write next.
Something I dont think anyone has talked about here in this thread.. the cost of applications in the catalog are not going to be billed to the account, you have to go to the dev's site and pay with a credit card.
I think thats as big of a miss as anything else.
Yes, I understand that palm wants the devs to get more hits to their pages, and have a chance to peddle their wares.. but im not keen on going through 4 extra steps just to give money to someone.. there needs to be a bill to account option very soon.
This is incorrect. It happens to be how it is working now, palm is planning how they will handle this when the app catalog goes live. Not sure if it will be bill to phone bill or bill right to cc from palm.
Remember back before the release of the pre, and somebody at palm was quoted as saying that with the pre they were going for the "fat middle." Well, going back to the first post I made, I still say that's what they have to work for, even with the app catalog.
I will never buy a fart app (period.) I don't have anything against those who want one, it's just not for me. (Although, if I knew one of my employees had one, I might have to take that into consideration [in my own thought process of course]when it came to a promotion...you who have these should consider that in your own life.)
I don't want to have to try and wade through thousands of mediocre apps to find ones that are really excellent.
I also don't want to have to pay $40 for over-priced junk like WinMo apps have been historically.
DtG is $10 in the ihone store? Great. I'll gladly pay $15 for my pre, because the last time I checked for my WinMo phone (which was a long time ago) it was $39.99. Heck, I'll even pay $20. (Although, I still believe that it should be a free upgrade to the viewer, but that is a different debate...)
Just like any other market place, there can be a sweet spot where price and demand find a happy balance. Palm can be selective on who they allow into the catalog. Developers who Palm feels are not ready for the catalog can offer their wares on Precentral for a donation and keep working on the apps until they are improved to the point Palm will take them. Professional means more than doing something for money: it is also an indication of quality. If you don't have quality, then you are nothing more than an...
Amateurhack! (and I should know.) ;-)
I don't have a problem paying a reasonable cost and $5 doesn't sound like much, but the App better be especially clever and useful for that price.
I wanted a couple games to play on my Pre (and why didn't it come with a basic card game or brick breaker or something to play during meetings and conference calls?). I bought 3 games from one of the bigger sites that I could use with Classic: Bejeweled, Bowling and Deluxe Solitaire. They were all $6-$7. I mean seriously, $6 for Bejeweled? That should be a $0.99 game. Fortunately they were having a 25% off sale.
Castle Wolfenstein for my Blackberry, now there was a game worth $6 (in fact I think it was $15), Solitaire, not so much.
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