
It’s fair to say that that webOS catalog is lagging competitors in the quantity of software titles for the Pre and Pixi handsets. But quantity isn’t everything — quality applications that enable a mobile device are far more important to me.
When I put my Palm Pre on notice, this was one of the primary reasons for the action. Software that I wanted or needed to use on a daily basis simply didn’t exist on the webOS platform yet. Palm is increasingly making it easier for developers to jump on board, however.
Following the Mojo SDK, Palm introduced a web-based development environment in Ares and also announced a Plug-In Development Kit at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show. Now that more tools are available, Palm’s now offering a bit of a bounty to entice development.
The Palm Hot Apps Program is based around a $1 million prize pool to reward developers. The top prize of $100,000 goes to the developer of a free webOS app that most downloaded between today and May 31, 2010. Likewise, the top paid app downloaded over the same time period nabs $100,000. The remaining prize pool is split between the next 200 top apps within categories, with prizes ranging between $1,000 and $10,000. Qualifying software titles must be built with either the Palm webOS SDK or the Ares environment, so those cool games built with the PDK shown off at CES won’t qualify.
So the toolsets are there and now there’s a million dollars on the line. The question is — how much will this help the webOS platform by adding more quality-driven titles to the webOS App Catalog? I’m not suggesting that current apps are lacking in quality — some are quite stellar and leverage the advantages of webOS, in fact.
But the Pre still seems caught in that chicken-and-egg scenario, more so than any other mobile platform right now. Developers tend to focus resources on the hot platforms in order to maximize return on the investment. And without a large number of quality titles, consumers could be skewed away from webOS handsets and towards those platforms perceived as “hot.” How much impact do you think this million dollar challenge have?
Clearly, Palm is heading in the right direction, although it hasn’t happened fast enough for some. The development platforms are maturing and the potential user-base for webOS is growing thanks to additional carrier options. Adding a financial incentive sweetens the pot even further, but will it be enough?
Related Research: “Could Games Redeem Windows Mobile and Palm’s webOS?“

{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2010\/02\/01\/how-many-webos-apps-can-a-million-dollars-buy\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_bb3d26057ee53cf08e70b4446ac196e7","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}