Palm permanently waives $99 developer fee 18
by Dieter Bohn Wed, 30 Jun 2010 6:40 pm EDT
In addition to waiving (and refunding) the $50 app submission fee, Palm is now offering the $99 fee to get a full developer access to submit to the app catalog free gratis. The fee had been waived back 'for a limited time' back in April and had also been free for open source apps - now that applies to everybody.
No word if, as with the $50 app fee, Palm will be refunding developers. Update: Actually, Palm never did charge that fee - change here is they aren't planning on it in the future. Either way - the skids for getting apps into Palm's app catalog are officially greased.
Source: Palm Developer Forums; Thanks Arthur!
18 Comments
Wow Definitely going to finish my apps now.
DAMN!!!... Cant wait for the Apps!
another good move from Palm...yes we risk the chance of SPAM, however, the other side to this is it will lure in developers and developers is what Palm need in a big way. Excellent move Palm. In this case the benefits are greater than any risks.
I wouldn't call this a RISK of spam, it's more of a spam machine. And while everyone hates spam, this isn't a bad thing.
This plan is designed to push as many apps as possible into the catalog as fast as possible, but most major app developers don't pay much attention to small fees like these, and usually wouldn't put the time into making an app that would be impacted much by the fee.
This is going to get small developers, who want to test the waters of WebOS or have some free time and might port one of their iphone apps over.
Apple has 200K+ apps, Android has 80K+ apps, WebOS has less than 3K apps. This is how everyone sees it, the number of good apps is unknown and based largly on opinion and need.
But more apps means higher numbers,higher numbers helps attract more users, more users attracts more and larger developers, which results in more advanced and more high quality apps.
So yeah, were gonna see a lot more crap in the catalog now. It would be nice if some devs could start porting some good iphone apps quick for the new Hot Apps contest, but I'm not expecting the good stuff for a while. Still waiting for the new APIs and the big fall update, not to mention some new hardware
This can only encourage development, good and bad. It'll be up to HPalm's quality control to control "spam." Personally, I don't care, I just want whatever can get the most developers to the most developer-friendly platform to work, and if this is it, more power to it.
+1
These moves smell desperate. I can't imagine they give off a good vibe to 1st tier developers. We shall see.
It does in a way, yes. But times are desperate for Palm. These kind of moves are needed IMHO. They need to be..."different" and they need developers. I think their point is to make it easy to enter and then just pay some fees per sale. So the developer does not feel a bite just to enter.
I don't understand your logic. Why would this give a bad signal to first tier devs? A company tries to make it easier to port apps and develop me for its platform and this is bad for first tier apps? First tier apps who will be highly sought next to the deluge of spam apps coming up? In any case, it will only make quality apps more desirable and thus more likely to be purchased by users.
Well you can't say they are not trying.
Actually, Palm did charge the $50 fee for app submissions. I paid two of those through Paypal.
We all know that Palm/HP will need the developers of the good apps to bring their stuff to webOS - and we also probably need the spam stuff as well so we can say - we have 50,000 apps and counting (like Apple and Android does). We all know there's plenty of crap there - but the # is impressive and it helps sells phone unfortunately.
We all know which Apps we want to see on webOS and Palm is doing some great things to entice them.
My thoughts are: instead of this fishing expedition - (now that we'll have the power and $$$ of HP behind us), isn't it feasible to aggressively go after the top 20 apps developers? Make it worth their while!
I mean - how about giving them sweet deals: pay them to port it to webOS! Dedicate Palm staff to work one-on-one with developers to quickly get their app up and running on webOS. Heck, offer them higher % of the sale (but be discreet about it - LOL).
Get some momentum. Once these guys start making serious $ from the Palm users via the App Catalog - all of the other developers will quickly jump at the chance and you'll see an influx of great/quality apps.
I have new-found hope that WebOS is a viable platform and am so glad I didn't bail for the EVO 4G!
This is awesome news imho!!
I have new-found hope that WebOS is a viable platform and am so glad I didn't bail for the EVO 4G!
um I worry about spam apps too and lousy apps but the apps still have to be approved by Palm..
I am afraid this desperate attempt to become a contender for the app market comes a little too late. I've had my Palm Pre for over a year now with the high hopes that Palm would go to new heights with the WebOS (hands down the best mobile phone OS I have to say) but the dismal efforts of their app catalog and showing off what WebOS can truly do has been only a major disappointment and dishonor.
I'm afraid unlike freejersey2007, I can afford to wait around for Palm to get their act together (even with HP's eminent purchase of Palm) Android and the HTC EVO just can't be passed up.
All I have to say is brighthouse labs et. al. others with over 100 apps that do the same exact thing for the same exact thing the only difference being the location. The fee didn't keep away app spam so nothing is going to change that by removing th fee. However what this will do is encourage small developers who want to earn money from their apps but the fees discouraged them from putting apps on webOS figuring the fee would cut in too much on the profits or perhaps even mean making no money at all. I being one of those who didn't want to submit paid apps because I didn't think the demand would exceed the income from charging for the app. As long as this is a permanent change I will consider submitting bigger paid apps instead of working on small freeware and opensource projects to avoid the fees.