New in the App Catalog for 31 December 2009, 1000 apps edition 53
by Derek Kessler
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 1:36 pm EST
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 1:36 pm EST 
What a way to ring in 2010! One thousand apps are now available in the webOS App Catalog, and now we feel silly for expressing doubt that Palm might not make it by the end of the year. Well, to be fair they didn't really make it (Engadget landed just after the clock struck 12 in Sunnyvale), but this is close enough for us! As you might imagine, it's a long list, but there are several notables after the break, including Engadget, Foursquare, consolidated sports apps from Brighthouse Labs, GeoStrings, and more. Check it all out... now!
New Apps:
- 9 Tails Coin Toss, $0.99, by PencilPoint Software: Coin tosser with more than 20 different coin options and up to nine participants.
- Accounts, Free, by Frazer McLean: Keep track of your accounts by noting deposits and withdrawls.
- Baseball Fans, $3.99, by Brighthouse Labs: Get all your baseball news in one spot.
- Basketball Fan, $3.99, by Brighthouse Labs: Get the news and scores for your favorite basketball teams.
- BikePro, $2.49, by Ed Miller: Track your biking speed, time, and distance with your phone’s GPS.
- Bing Search, Free, by Logdog82: Easily search Microsoft’s new Bing “decision engine.”
- Brain Booster: An ultimate guide, $2.49, by Follow Instinct: Steps and guides to a healthier and more productive noggin.
- BrowserMarks, $0.99, by Prototypic: Delicious bookmark manager.
- BuildaSearch, $1.99, by Earthoid: Search the web using multiple engines at once.
- Camera Fun! Lite, Free, by Chickenfarm: Add fun items to your photos, free version with limited additions.
- CashBox Lite, Free, by elitespark: Replace your pen and paper checkbook register with this app.
- Crazy Chicken Hunt, $1.50, by Turbo Media Group: Kill as man crazy chickens as you can before they get to you. With bombs.
- CTA Tranzit, $1.99, by VX Systems: See the real time arrival times of CTA busses.
- Danny Kaye, $0.99, by Dijit: Singer and comedian Danny Kaye’s self-titled album.
- Dictionary Lite, Free, by KDB Productions: Simple and easy dictionary. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate kdubhotsauce!
- Engadget, Free, by AOL: Get the latest technology and gadget news from Engadget.
- ExpenseTracker, $1.99, by RC Software: Track your daily expenditures and even schedule repeated expenses.
- FitTrack, $1.99, by Miller Technologies: GPS-enabled exercise tracker with speed and pace stats.
- Football Fans, $3.99, by Brighthouse Labs: Check the scores and news for your favorite football teams.
- Foursquare beta, Free, by foursquare: Find nearby bars, restaurants, parks, and more all recommended by your friends.
- GeoStrings, $2.99, by Hedami: Set customizable location-based alarms.
- Get Wet, $0.99, by Dijit: Check out the tunes of the 60’s-influenced 80’s pop duo.
- Glissito, Free, by OpenSourceJason: Trial version of color puzzle game Gliss.
- Hockey Fans, $3.99, by Brighthouse Labs: Read up on the latest news and scores from across the hockey world.
- iStayFit, $4.99, by Looti: Track your daily work-out routines.
- jFarkle, $0.99, by Cohosoft: It’s Farkle (or Zilch), with rollover points and bonus rounds.
- Lab Values, $2.99, by Vimukti Technologies: Check the common laboratory values for more than 150 items.
- Ladies in Lingerie Backgrounds, $0.99, by Dijit: Does this really require a description?
- Liquorpedia, $0.99, by Austin Cameron: Get info on countless spirits. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate socca1157!
- Lost, Free, by JoseLuis: Countdown to the Lost season six premiere.
- MarketSimplified, Free, by Market Simplified: Manage your TD Ameritrade stock account from your phone.
- Noelia, $0.99, by Dijit: Listen to award-winning Latin artist Noelia.
- Paper Football, $0.99, by Engine Equals Car: Two-player paper football game.
- Passify, Free, by Jeff Browning: Password generator. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate jbrowning!
- PictPicker, Free, by Martin Grund: Upload your photos to multiple online sites.
- PocketMirror Notes Launcher, Free, by Chapura: Open the PocketMirror Notes app from outside PockeyMirror proper (requires installation of PocketMirror).
- Pong Free, Free, by Doin: Classic pong.
- RemoteWin, $9.99, by Deep Thought Software: Remotely access and control your Windows PC from your webOS phone. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate deepthoughtsoftware!
- RIPTA, Free, by Sirata Studios: Get Rhode Island Public Transit Authority schedules right on your phone. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate SirataXero.
- Sara Haze, $0.99, by Dijit: Listen to the music of singer-songwriter Sara Haze.
- ScoreKeeper, Free, by Jiyer: Keep track of scores for any game.
- Squash Bounce, Free, by MathSlice: The goal of this game is to touch the tiles around the board before the ball gets there.
- Sudoku Slice, Free, by MathSlice: It’s Sukdou, pure and simple.
- TAN Total, Free, by Robert Muetzner: Store your TAN (transaction number) lists.
- Terry Linen, $0.99, by Dijit: Check out the music of reggae artist Terry Linen.
- Timesheet, Free, by pyjohnson: Keep track of your hours worked and compute overtime. Congratulations to Homebrew Graduate pyjohnson!
- Translate! Free, Free, by Brett Cato: Translate between more than 45 languages using Google Translate.
- What’s for Dinner?, Free, by Snazzy Software: Keep track of your recipes and needed ingredients.
- Where is my car?, $0.99, by Martin Grund: Mark your car’s location and navigate back there.
- Yo Mama Jokes, $0.99, by MyAppCatalog.com: More than 500 “Yo mama” jokes in one bundle.
Updated Apps:
- Quick Contacts Lite, Free
- Top Stocks, $2.86
53 Comments
nice to see brighthouse listened to the masses, and combined sports apps into one per sport.
they didnt listen .. its part of their money making strategy.. 1.99 for a single team that someone may happen on or 3.99 for the whole thing which they may find or not amongst all the single teams
i'm curious as to the catalyst. Whether it was Palm that made them or financial. That said i'm not that curious.
It's a step in the right direction, but the damage ia already done. The catalog is littered with 30x's the noise than if they just put the real combined GUI out there. If I follow one team enough to buy the single team crAPP, I'd probably wish I had other teams to use the app as a reference. Their shotgun approach will likely keep me away as a buyer of either execution. I support good developers that focus on a quality product for a fair ($10-30). If Brighthouse can make this their approach going forward, I'll reconsider. Half an app or GUI is not worth the time or space no matter how cheap it is.
I just purchased the H790 and find it to be very good. I can hear the person on the other end quite well and I have been told that the other person can't tell I am on a Bluetooth headset.
Student speed dating
Will anybody find the 3.99 app buried in the 1.99 crAPPs? They spammed themselves out of sales. :)
goooooo RIPTA!
Yay thanks!
Finally made it!
:D
I swear to dog if Dijit comes out with another "great" app I am going to soot myself. Palm why do you allow such crap into the app store. I thought that the ceo only wanted quality apps. So much for that!
As a company you walk a fine line trying to say what can make it or what can't make it into an app store... what Palm can do that will please all of those involved is find a way to make the cream rise to the top via a smartly done app store. Let the market dictate what is quality and provide a way for the user to find it easily... at some point webOS will too be like the Apple app store and have SOOOO much junk to sift through but Palm needs to make a really innovative way to highlight the stuff people are using/liking the most.
+1
Palm already provides a way to highlight what's popular. Just click on the "Popular" category in the App Catalog, and you're there. I picked up the Crosswords app today. :)
The problem with the current popular view is that it goes by ratings. So if a bloke with a cruddy app costing 10$ rates himself 5 stars, he will sit at the top for a while.
Well, the problem isn't that it goes by ratings. The problem, in that case, is that the system allows the developer to rate the app in the first place. That's a pretty glaring flaw, IMO. But you can get that kind of problem on Amazon, too. The way to work around it is to take into account the number of ratings. The "Popular" category does rank by number of ratings, so it's not that hard to figure out which apps have the best ratings, even if the developer rates his/her own software first.
I second that!
Y'know he wasn't born a fool. It took work to get that way.
Was curious about the CTA app, but nothing in the description made me feel it was strongly superior to the site, www.ctabustracker.com
I then went to the developer's site, www.vxsys.com and saw only a "free Starter Web Page". Yes, that's right...a single, bare bones web page with only a brief description of the app, and a contact email address. I guess I'm passing on this app.
I was thinking the same thing. I already have www.ctabustracker.com as a bookmark and it worked fine for me the time I needed it.
why can't I get all apps here in Spain? Just around 300
I need a good weather app like accuweather... Friend of mine managed to find it in the app catalog but it was there probably for just one day and it's not there anymore
that's about the only app I really need
You're probably only seeing all of the free apps. Paid apps are not yet available outside of the U.S. Hopefully now that the app catalog is out of beta Palm will soon expand its full app catalog to all countries.
Crazy Chicken Hunt, $1.50, by Turbo Media Group: Kill as man crazy chickens as you can before they get to you. With bombs.
He Completely RIPPED OFF of WABBIT HUNT!
LOL, it's not even subtle.
That's got to be the same developer???
What a complete ripoff and copy if not... If they aren't the same group, the only things that they changed was the Chicken images and Orientation.
Everything else is the same...
Anyone have any information on Turbo Media Group? As a Software developer and co-owner of Invasive Bamboo, I was really appalled to see such a blatant rip-off already on the App Catalog. It's not that its all that hard to rip anything off on the Pre. Its amazingly simple. Its just that Palm let this obvious rip-off, and a poor one at that, be released. It is so blatant and obvious that whomever reviews the apps in the catalog should have caught that and stopped it. Now someone has made a little money for nothing in the catalog. Whats to stop Turbo Media Group from doing the same to any of our apps? Why hasn't Palm pulled this from the catalog for SuperGigaMega? Certainly they noticed and should have filed a complaint.. Or are the two groups related?
One, I just want one app: a fantastic PIM so my toy can turn into a tool. *sigh*
What kind of PIM are you looking for? The weak links (IMO) in the WebOS PIM lineup are Tasks and Notes. For me, Fliq Notes takes care of the lack of a great Note application. I'm not sure about Tasks, because that's not a function I use all that much, but I'm sure there are good tasks apps out there, if you look.
And really, the only thing I find lacking in the built-in apps, as far as PIM goes, is the lack of categories. You can have different categories for mail and calendar, but tasks and notes really need them, too. It would also be nice if you could link a contact with one of the other PIM apps.
"You can have different categories for mail and calendar, but tasks and notes really need them, too."
Where is that option? I don't see categories for mail and calendar.
I guess it depends how you use your e-mail. I've always had a personal account and a professional account (from whomever my employer is at the time). If you keep them separated this way, you can have at least a "personal" and "professional" account. You can further categorize things by labels if you use Gmail.
With the calendar, it's basically the same thing: You can have several calendars in your Calendar view, for work, personal, or whatever. (I don't make huge use of this feature, by my girlfriend does.)
I've never used Outlook with the Pre, but I assume that you can divide your calendar and e-mail when it comes in from Outlook in a similar way.
You're not putting a category on a mail or appointment when you create it, necessarily, but where you create it can categorize it for you.
It's not a perfect system, obviously, but it works.
In fact, now that I think about it, it's also possible to categorize tasks. Just create a "Personal" task list, a "Business" task list, and whatever other lists you want, and add the tasks to the proper list accordingly. Again, you're not marking the task with a category so much as you are categorizing the task by which list it's on.
It's really just a different way of looking at categorization, I think.
Palm makes the greatest PIMs and they come free with every product they've ever made and they are forwards compatible with everyproduct they sell. Every product, that is, except Pre and Pixi. Eh, who needs to securely manage information anyway. Only people with complicated jobs and lots of money need that.
Believe me, I have looked, there are no good task apps. the closest right now is CowTasks. What we are still missing is a nice today view with complete filtering and sorting. Saved views would be a big plus (vis a vis DateBk6)
I understand and accept that developers like Brighthouse and Dijit can game the system to churn out AppSpam(tm) and that Palm would be on very shaky ground to block them. I personally wouldn't want Palm to be choosing what can and can't be in the catalog.
That said, it certainly would be nicer to read Derek's very helpful new app postings without all their junk. Maybe he could just skip listing Brighthouse and Dijit apps explicitly, and instead just announce how many they'd dumped out there during each reporting period?
The thing is, I would much rather Palm take their crap out of the catalog. Remember, the catalog isn't the only way to install, so it's not like Palm would be completely blocking them off the platform (Palm can still provide them with the installation URL, right?). Just cleaning up the crap in their catalog.
Why would Palm do this when their apps bump up the total app count? They wouldn't have hit 1000 apps today if it weren't for all their apps. The bad apps may not generate them much revenue, but it helps with their app counts which does help their bottom line.
for me, that app situation does not make the platform more appealing. i did't have time to sift through those apps to find the scant decent ones. Personally, I don't care that Palm says whats in their catalog. It's theirs. Amazon decides what it sells. Apple decides what itunes sells. Barnes and Noble is the same. Nobody says I don't want Barnes and Noble choosing what books i can buy. Best Buy decides it's whether it sells vibrators or not based probably on how include such an item affects customer perception. It's not like they aren't electronic gadgets. I think it's a trade off piss off a lot of customers or satisfy a developer. Just speaking for me. The spam app thing does NOT make the overall Palm product more appealing. I actually have considered that if palm is going to allow anything i'll just learn to make a simple picture viewer app and make my own couple hundred apps of nothing but free quotes and free to use pictures. Charge $1.99 too. If they are gonna allow it why shouldn't i run the same scheme. I doubt i have the time to learn to write code so it's unlikely and i'm still against it.
And again. i thought Palm kept saying quality not quantity. And all the Palm enthusiasts seemed to throw well the Palm store will have quality not quantity at people as a justification. It's seems strange now that after that brighthouse mess i don't hear them talking trash that the Iphone catalog is full of spam apps and fart apps. At some point if all i see is bad apps i stop looking. And honestly i stopped looking at the app catalog a few weeks ago after i felt it got a bit ridiculous. My two cents.
side note your homebrew stuff is quality. I personally have no idea why Palm hasn't been inspired by your work.
You make a really good point. If junk apps keep being released each day, people will stop looking in the catalog for quality apps. This does hurt developers spending a lot of time on their products. I spent close to 3 months on GeoStrings and it would suck if a lot of people never see my app and other good ones because they have already given up on the catalog because of the flood of these junk/duplicate apps by these few developers.
Even if not for you, for the larger consumer populace (heretofore: "Sheeple") the app situation DOES make or break the platform. Palm had (has) somewhere in the number of 40,000 apps for PalmOS and there were dupes, but far less available and wile there was no "App catalog" you only needed to visit sites like Palmgear.com and freewarepalm.com to download to your hearts content and just sync to your device. Sites like Astraware and PalmInfoCenter had OTA downloads available as well.
Enter Apple who because of their iPod already has a huge subscriber base and Jobs announces the iPhone which automatically has a high adoption rate because of this. Now they only have 'webapps' that first year (yes, they sucked) until the App Store hit in '08. Apple did perfect the "on device OTA download" model and the "instant sale" mentality triggered $$$ in the minds of many. So the quest for $100,000 began.
Crap apps are the result and despite 36 coworkers that I have asked about the app usage on their iPhones, most used about 6-10 yet had dozens and dozens downloaded. What this means to the rest of the smartphone companies is that sheeple think the number of apps determines how "good" the phone is regardless if 80,000 ARE crApps or not.
With that I gathered a dev team and "pSneezer", "pPuke", and more are coming right up. :)
by app situation i meant the brighthouse, dijit lots of spam type apps. I didn't mean the number of apps. I actually started as someone that didn't care about apps. but you bring up a good point. apple's iphone success was built off the ipod not off of apps. Appz just totally enhance the whole package. Which incidently is why DanPLC's app i think is so vital and it's an amazing mistake that Palm made an utterly nuetered music player. Apple got all those people on an iphone because it originaly hooked tons of them on ipod music players, podcasts, and itunes music downloads. But back to apps i agree with your point that apps are very important. I just don't buy the that 100k apps is the biggest selling point and i think there is a point when you have enough apps. i think a lot of apps translates to lots of choices and support and people like that. I think lower quality apps all from the same person does not show choice or support. But i'll leave it at this i think Apple can get away with with as you say (though i disagree) 80k crap apps cause 20k good apps is a ton of apps. It's a good enough selection for most people. it's less of an issue. For Palm if 800 of your 1000 apps are "crap" the majority of what people are seeing at the top of their list is crap. And that sheds you in a bad light. Regardless here hoping that the there are more quality apps. FYI: the only reason i went back into the app catalog was last night i saw a story on engadget of a webos app. pretty good actually if you read the site.
When it comes to the list, all apps are equal in my eyes (unless Brighthouse releases a dozen variations of the same app, in which case they're listed in a consolidated bullet point).
Or a simple "flag as spam" tag for apps so that users can see what other users consider spam.
+1 A suggestion was made to allow users to set a spam filter to block certain developers from showing in their app catalog. I think this would allow each user to select which publishers to block.
Both of you have excellent solutions right there.
HOPEFULLY PALM IS LISTENING TO YOU!
The Engadget app Is very nice. People should check that out if they haven't. Clean, quite a few features. One of the better apps i've seen in the catalog. I hope other websites do similar stuff.
Yes I agree 110%...
Very nice app, clean interface, and solid programming.
I also like the suggestion icon on the right and also did not know they were owned by AOL.
Thanks and keep up the great work...
I'd love to see precentral have something just like that.
Everybody get Foursquare and Blockchalk and start using them already!
i don't really know foursquare but it caught my eye. i'll have to check it out.
As a counterpoint to all the complaints and criticisms, the WhatsForDinner app is fantastic! And free. It hopefully will get even better,but it's already making my meal planning much easier.
GeoStrings is amazing!
Can we change the list of featured apps! lol I swear I am tired of every time i open the catalog seeing three grey dull looking icons...and that STUPID W!!!! AHHHHHHH lol
Palm arranged a little different New Year's celebration for me and some others too in "unofficial Pre countries"; Apps count went all the way downto only one single app, Classic. 75 apps just disappeared.
ok, I am happy with all the apps and the updates (which is to say I am happy with Palm). But didn't Adobe say they would have a pre-release of Flash by the end of 2009? I am getting impatient.
It did pre release.
Device producers have it.
If you don't sell smart phones to carriers, then you will be part of the "release" which is still to come in early 2010 which has 3-6 months to go.
Glad to know that. Usually we get word about something like that happening. Especially when they make a big deal about doing it by a certain time. Maybe I missed it.