New Additions to the App Catalog: Blackout, Spades, and Echo 76
Palm's waited until a quiet Friday afternoon to add a few more apps to their catalog: Blackout, Spades, and Echo.
Blackout is a version of Lightsout, a puzzle game where you try to clear out lights on a board (yep, similar to the Homebrew app, Lights Out).
Spades, as you may have guessed, is the card game and is ad supported.
Finally, Echo is Chapura's new solution for syncing your Palm Pre with Palm's own Palm Desktop software. It works over WiFi and is Windows-only (sadly). It's a 7-day trial, after which you'll be dropping a relatively hefty $29.95. If you're still in love with Palm Desktop (hey, we don't judge here ...much), this is your long-awaited solution. You'll need to grab the desktop component
We're happy to see new apps in the App Catalog, but we'll be happier when they're coming so fast and furious that they don't even merit comment.
Thanks to Ryan and hparsons for the tip!
76 Comments
Oh me, oh my!
35 noww
Would be nice of the lights out game always had a solution, but most the time it doesn't.
--
Seriously? Are they releasing these little apps just to piss us off?
When are we going to get something worthwhile in the app store.
Who pissed in your corn flakes? There are plenty of worthwile apps already in the beta app store... emphasis on the beta. Just because it doesn't have 50,000 junk apps doesn't meant the app catalog isn't worthwhile
There's no way on earth and the rest of the galaxy I'll ever pay 30 dollars for a phone app.
Spades is one of my favorite games, so I was excited to see this app. The game is pretty good, but I think the UI could have been designed a little better. But the kicker is this game is a HUGE battery hog. I started the game at 15% and within a few minutes I was at 0%. That just blows me away.
Hallelujah!!! I actually didn't read past the first few words that said "new apps" Now they could suck but new apps is good and hopefully Palm can get on the ball with a few more substantive updates too to update the media player and give true copy an paste.
$29 bucks. ok i may withdraw my hallelujah.
Well at least there aren't any new restaurant apps!
So for $30.00 I can get echo... which essentially does what I already have with google calendar aka... synergy? For $30.00, at least they could throw-in a baseball cap that reads "dumb ass" on it.
Don't they throw in one of those caps with every new iPhone purchase?
I have to agree 100% here. I want this app and I would have had no objection to paying $30 for it. I have over 4500 entries in contacts and many of the entries include security sensitive information. I need these contacts on the go but I cannot sync them with Google. Security is one issue and the other is that Google Contacts does not support contact categories. As you can appreciate, with over 4500 contacts, I need to be able to categorize them! Not to mention that Google Contacts is so damn slow to load up.
The problem with this version of Echo, however, is that it requires Palm Desktop 6.2! That version of Palm Desktop is garbage. It has sync issues, archive issues and no colour support for the calendar. If this app is truly geared towards Palm legacy users, which it obviously is, they have to release a version which works with Palm Desktop 4.2 otherwise this is going to be a loser for Chapura.
%'m glad to see that i'm not the only one who is outright offended by another $29 app. Seriously, the developers have got to get a clue. This is not blackberry; this is not winmo. If you want the palm pre to fail as a platform, and for all your efforts to be wasted, then by all means, keep offering us $30 apps that only a handful of people will need. I see your other app had 69k downloads. How many people actually paid for it after the trial? Take that, and divide it in half for this one. Hope you do well with that...
I'm sorry guys, i'm in a terrible mood tonight. I think that if we don't start seeing some real apps at reasonable prices, i'm going to take my pre out for some target practice, and post the video on youtube. Or maybe i'll find a cheap iphone someplace, and run apps in it, using my pre as a wifi hotspot using mytether, and only pick up the pre when someone calls me.
Grrrrrrr!
Well, yes, math is simple, but i'm not sure your figuring works in a realistic business model. Afterall, you could say that company x has $1mil invested in the development of app y, ans so, since there is no competition, they should charge $2mil, and then they only have to sell the app one time to make their money.
No, prices are not determined by the amount of competition. Prices are determined by what the market will bear. Winmo developers can charge assinine prices for their apps even with a ton of competition (I would dare say that there are actually more winmo apps out there than iphone apps, it's just that there isn't an apps store and microsoft doesn't have to sign off on them) because the average winmo user will bear the price of the app.
Palm is not in the same market here as microsoft, and is going to have to continue to move phones to have a viable app catalog that will support its developers. If the average price of an app is going to be the same as a winmo or blackberry app, then that will represent one less incentive for end users to embrace the platform.
I personally hope that chapura is just trying to appeal to a small niche market here. Maybe this will work out for them. But for those of us waiting for, oh say, a decent word processor, or any number of basic apps that smartphones are expected to have, this is just a slap in the face.
$30 for a sync app?? And MS-Windows only? No Linux? No MacOS?
No thanks....
Oh, and the "try me" crap on the app catalog is almost as annoying. Free? "try me". $1? "try me". $1,000? "try me".
...and, of course: "$30? F*ck me!"
In unison now....
Full prices up front please!
What is up with "Windows only (sadly)"? Windows is 88-90% of the market. Why is it surprising it's the first one developed for?
It isn't surprising, it is just disappointing.
Didn't download any. $30 to sync? No thanks. Just get a google account people. Ohh well.. I'm super excited about prejeweled in the homebrew catalog!!! Yay!
If you spend your $30 now to sync just calendar and contacts, as a bonus maybe they'll give you first dibs when they release the "upgrade" that supports tasks and memos. Maybe priced at an additional $25?
Tell me again the point of the Pre for anyone who wants to use their phone for more than cutting cheese and pretty fonts? I just don't get it. Palm used to have basic functionality at its core, and now it won't even sync the most basic of PIMs without paying off some third-party vendor - even then just two PIMs?
I will be getting a BB Tour if they don't step it up.
I love Spades the game so I was excited to download the app. For the most part it is really fun and I like playing it. It also has a landscape mode which is refreshing. However, this app is not polished. In fact, it would not be the best game app in the homebrew group.
So kudos to homebrew devs and boo to the app cat? Where is the quality control?
I love Spades the game so I was excited to download the app. For the most part it is really fun and I like playing it. It also has a landscape mode which is refreshing. However, this app is not polished. In fact, it would not be the best game app in the homebrew group.
So kudos to homebrew devs and boo to the app cat? Where is the quality control?
I was also happy to see the Spades game until I played it. That is the dumbest cumputer card game AI I've ever seen. I played one game of singles and won 537 to 24 to -114 to -144. The decisions the computer players were making were plain stupid. A game like this is not much fun if it's so easy.
The game also seems more "homemade" then a lot of the homebrew apps I've seen.
As others have mentioned, it's a battery killer too.
I'm sure eventually it will be improved or else someone else will do a better one, but it is a surprisingly unpolished addition to the official app catalog
The Echo page says it requires Palm Desktop 6.2.2. Does anyone know if it will work with Palm Desktop 4.1.4? Does it maintain calendar categories on sync? Are notes from calendar events synced, also? There isn't much info on the Echo site.
It's kind of strange really. While the apps that were already in the store were mostly really good and well polished it seems that at least 2 of these are not at all. In fact they're a lot less good than quite a few apps here on precentral. I hope this is just some weird fluke and not the shape of things to come as far as the app store is concerned.
It's kind of strange really. While the apps that were already in the store were mostly really good and well polished it seems that at least 2 of these are not at all. In fact they're a lot less good than quite a few apps here on precentral. I hope this is just some weird fluke and not the shape of things to come as far as the app store is concerned.
It's kind of strange really. While the apps that were already in the store were mostly really good and well polished it seems that at least 2 of these are not at all. In fact they're a lot less good than quite a few apps here on precentral. I hope this is just some weird fluke and not the shape of things to come as far as the app store is concerned.
Are we really getting excited about these apps... For the love of god can we get some COOL APPS ALREADY...
this is annoying me. can anyone else not view the prices of apps? or if they cost anything at all.
Homebrew apps are making the Palm app store obsolete
You know we are in trouble when the Homebrew apps blow away the apps in the store.
Yahoo IM, please?
Echo sync? $29+. If it's anything like Pocketmirror I won't be shelling out money on this application. I have constant problems with Pocketmirror and error messages. Why can't it just work? Why can't it also sync internet calendars I have on Outlook?
is the app really $30 to sync up. I thought it was free for the first 7 days are you telling me the reason it's not syncing is because i need to pay the $30.00
3 new reasons not to bother opening the App Catalog, GJ Palm. I know you don't want Fart apps, but how are these less than stellar apps much better?
I thought the unwinnablness of blackout was fun because you had to decide at what point you felt you couldn't clear the board. I heard the developer is changing this to be always winnable.
To have the game be unwinnable in the first place seems ridiculous to me. What kind of game is that?
I can kind of understand the idea that people want to sync with Palm Desktop (especially for memos and to-dos) but I wholeheartedly agree that $30 is too much for the privilege. I'm not saying it's not worth it for someone, but not for me.
I doubt a lot of apps will hit that price, but some inevitably will. If an app does something useful and novel, I don't really see a problem with it (e.g., I'd expect to pay a premium for the Pro version of Docs to Go, letting you edit word and Excel documents on the Pre), But pulling a database from the Pre and putting it on your computer just doesn't sound that difficult to me. Not $30 worth, anyway.
>>To have the game be unwinnable in the first place seems ridiculous to me. What kind of game is that?
Palm's business plan of killing the Treo and dancing on its grave, then expecting the Pre to singlehandedly turn the iPhone cult into their customers when the damn WebOS can't even sync to a local host without paying a $30 ransom for each component you want to sync.
Unwinnable? LightsOut or BlackOut has a general solution. No matter the board position it is solvable. Its a clssic game like rubic's cube. The fun is in solving it quicker. Etc. Admittedly in this day and age we expect more out of games than this. :)
I wonder if the Palm Pre was a just a gimmick for Palm. I wonder if Rubenstein is still really working for Apple???? I mean if this latest groups of apps doesn't get most of you to thinking WTF! Then you're just not being realistic. I've owned the 600, 650, and the 755p from Palm. And, when it comes to basic phone stuff the Pre still can't beat my passed phones let alone the Iphone. I'm starting to wonder if we've all been suckered. LOL! BTW, I still haven't received my rebate from Sprint which really pisses me off when I see other retailers offering my phone for dirt cheap out the door......LMAO! I think they got us this time....
I went to the Sprint store today and they still have the 755p in stock, but no longer on display. it was $99 after contract rebates, and the Centro is $49. I can buy them on eBay for not much different price. I was hoping to get the 755p for close to free to upgrade my 650. oh well. I really wish the Pre had a calendar/full phone search function! I would consider picking up a Pre again if that were the case.
Actually, I thought that post reflected exactly the frustration that many of us on the end user side are feeling. The problem we have with a $29 app with limited usability has to do with Palm lack of forsight, leadership, and direction. It is a marketing mistake.
That post was made a month ago. Has much changed in that time? Nope, not a whole lot.
Palm has to make it happen on both ends, and soon. Developers need direction, and the resources available to get their job done. End users need a device with functional programs that help us to work productively. An overprices niche program two months into the deal isn't giving anyone confidence.
And I say that our complaints are valid, and this is a great forum for airing them. Palm and developers alike are listening.
From a company that sells the Touchstone without a power adaptor, its no surprise they bend you over to the tune of $30 for sync. Palm FAIL
I do. And with the stakes so high on Palm and Sprint for this (to the point they would kill off innovation on the successful Treo to launch the Pre), I would have expected some damn smart bribery of developers to get a buttload of apps ported over to the Pre in time for launch. These idiots want to take on an entrenched Apple cult with the most powerful reassembled monopoly behind them - and here we are 7 months after announcement discussing spending $30 bucks on an app that does only half of what was built into every Palm device for the past 13 years. Plus a couple minor games.
Palm has a long track record of being completely oblivious to the basic fact that apps drive the want/need for their devices. They've skimped on memory so often that developers left in droves because there was no space to innovate - if you ain't got space to install an app, there's little chance you'll even bother with the trial. This "premier" WebOS device has the same pattern going - only 8GB memory and landlocked forever to it. If you're going to kill off the golden goose Treo, you should damn well offer some advantage over what you killed off. Instead, it appears Palm's priorities were perfecting spying on their users and designing a piece of tech-porn that looks good in a design fair. No wonder the addition of 3 apps is a news story here - that was a slow hour at Palmgear not long ago....
ok can someone please tell me how can i down load
what is an on device on the pre please help im cryin
is there anyone out there that can help
I LOV DAT SPADES GAME...