Palm tweaks feeds to allow for private distribution of beta apps 41
Tue, 16 Feb 2010 4:09 pm EST 
While the Palm beta feeds are good for getting your beta apps out for testing, sometimes you want to put it out, but only to testers you have picked. Until today you’d have to manually distribute the IPKG to your testers, and for every update that can get a bit tiring. Palm hears ya, and they’ve added an option to the beta app submission process that will make it easier to have a closed beta. Now developers can choose to not check off the “Include this app in Feeds” box and thus not have their app appear in the beta feeds in Preware and in browsers like PreCentral’s own App Gallery. Instead, the developer gets the URL they would have gotten anyway, and they can send that out to their testers directly - and every time you upload and update to the app your testers will be able to download it from the App Catalog.
41 Comments
first! Sounds cool! Go palm!
congratulations
funny. Ever since Palm came out on Verizon this started. I don't now if it's just coincidence but number of dumbasses has skyrocketed in the last few weeks.
I think it's been around longer...but def. more frequent...what a bunch of lame asses.
Love the Walgreen's shades and is that a 17" CRT!!!
First has it's privileges I guess.
geeezzzz
Not a good idea to do that here.
lol dude, they're going to bash you for saying first!! anyways great article..
wtf! Why is palm trying to make apps private?? How will I download burnout 2??!?!?? This is so screwed up! I shouldve gotten a blackberry :/
did you even read the article? ... people like this make me think they are only here to complain and troll.
if you don't understand the beta process, please don't complain about it.
I think you're funny. But thank you for demonstrating that mocking the trolls is just as bad as being one.
@jim
I bet there is a long line of BB users willing to swap with you. The article is about beta users. Not troubled mid-to-late adopters.
I think it's a great idea. I don't make apps but it gives the developer a real user base that will test their items.
BTW, I'm willing to Beta test some apps for the Pre on Sprint as well =)
Corporations that want to roll out a custom business app to employees only could use this.
Good idea. +1
I think this is a great way for developers to get their apps tested(as stated above). MUCH easier than having to package up and send the ipkg out. I have a app I have been working with and sending it out that way is a pain - has to be Zipped up and then its still about a 6mb file, so sometimes you have email delivery problems. This should hopefully clear that up a bunch.
Way to go Palm! YOU GUYS ROCK! Keep things coming. Keep giving the public what you want and you'll go far!
agreed... i put an app in the beta dist and about 350 ppl downloaded it in a day or two. i didn't know that if i didn't change the app id all those people could download the paid version for free. glad that won't happen again with this change. lost a few hundred bucks there ;) thanks palm!
#1. Geeksquadkid and fastmax79: "First Post" posts are lame. Posting a "First Post" image NOT as a joke: Super Lame.
#2. Jimbohsp: you are an idiot who apparently has the comprehension skills of a 4 year old.
#3. Kudos to Palm for this excellent idea. This will really help out the dev community.
If you actually looked at my post you can see I was directing it at Geeksquadkid.
Look at all my posts since I've started here and you will see I NEVER once said "first".
I'm guessing jimbohsp was being sarcastic.
#1. Geeksquadkid and fastmax79: "First Post" posts are lame. Posting a "First Post" image NOT as a joke: Super Lame.
#2. Jimbohsp: you are an idiot who apparently has the comprehension skills of a 4 year old.
#3. Kudos to Palm for this excellent idea. This will really help out the dev community.
#4 you are a dumbass for posting the same post twice...FAIL!
except that I only posted it once. From my Pre. Using the m.precentral version of the page. I have no idea how it posted twice, I hit "save" once.
What number post am I?
lol
wtf! Why is palm trying to make apps private?? How will I download burnout 2??!?!?? This is so screwed up! I shouldve gotten a blackberry :/
spam
wtf! Why is palm trying to make apps private?? How will I download burnout 2??!?!?? This is so screwed up! I shouldve gotten a blackberry :/
how have I not comprehension? I can see messed up shit when I lay my eyes on it! Palm wants to make apps private like apple does! This way we can only download from the app catalog... If we have a url??? How much $$ is a god dam url?? I habe illegitimate children to feed and enuff is enuff palm I know you didn't sell a lot of fones but come on don't stick it to the ones who did!!
jimbohsp:
In case you are actually serious:
Versions of the software, known as beta versions, are released to a limited audience outside of the programming team. The software is released to groups of people so that further testing can ensure the product has few faults or bugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_testing#Beta_testing
So, this will allow developers to try out their software with a limited group of people before releasing it for everyone.
do you know what a beta app is? its an app that is unfinished and requires testing. Palm is providing a way for developers to distribute their app to testers over the air. this has nothing to do with "making apps private like apple"
plz tell me you're just joking...
Beta apps are likely to brick your palm.
Bricking a Palm makes it act like the Blackberry you so badly crave.
If you want to beta test an app, I'll set you up!
I hope everyone here that is posting useless crap realizes that it affects potential buyers. Seeing all of your lame ass immature comments...even if they are directed at other lame ass comments is only going to make people shake their head and leave the site with a bad image.
Derek, Jason, and the others here at Pre-Central try and do the best job they can to inform the public, including people who don't have Pre's or Pixi's on the latest news and part of that is the constructive comments we give in return.
So while it was kinda funny to see immature retards posting "Im first" comments and then watch as they get bashed into pieces, to see this over and over again each new article is starting to wear me thin and I am sure others as well.
Think about this site as a professional place to read up on the latest and greatest from Palm and treat it as such and please keeo the immature comments down
+1.
Coming from a user who has been around since my first Pre in July, this forum needs to keep a lively discussion about the topic in hand.
I came here because the community was great. Please don't ruin that for potential users who want to share the WebOS love.
Another +1.
I've been here since June and this has always been a great place to discuss webOS. Everyone for the most part is always very polite, respectful, and tasteful. But lately the comment sections in the articles have turned into pointless flame wars that have nothing to do with the topics of the articles. And these flame wars drown out the real discussions.
There are always a few immature posts, but the last two weeks have been getting out of hand. I come here to learn a few new things, and see what people have to say. I usually enjoy coming here. It is getting more difficult to do so. This goes against what I usually would think, but I am starting to believe that precentral needs to start deleting posts. I don't mean controversial posts (because we learn from others opinions), but only the posts that have nothing useful whats so ever to share.
They could do what ENGADGET did and turn off comments for a while.
This is excellent news! Having a way to distribute a beta version of your app to a limited number of people is an absolute must.
I'm definitely going to be using this to beta test the next major revision of my app.
Cautions to developers:
Note that you cannot charge for an app in the beta feed, and if someone has the URL they can pass the URL on to anyone else and the people who receive the URL can then install the beta app.
It's also trivial to generate the URLs and search for new beta apps without being part of the closed beta group determined by the developer.
So if you don't want the beta version of your app to be used for free by anyone who gets it, then you'd better have some other means of authentication of approved beta users.
-- Rod
I think once the update lands some of this "idle charter" will go away, right now folks are just bored waiting for 1.4