Palm this week will be demonstrating 3D gaming at GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco. As perfect timing would have it, the company has announce the public beta release of webOS PDK or plug-in development kit. For those of you who have checked out Need for Speed or any of the App Catalog 3D games, they were developed using the PDK. With this now available, this should allow for expanded App Catalog offerings. Full press release after the break. Developers can find more information and download the PDK by hitting up developer.palm.com.
Next week brings the Game Developer’s Conference and Palm is expected to chat about their PDK (Plug-in Developer Kit). In an interesting twist, word comes from John Paczkowski (via Dieter Bohn) that Palm’s PDK will allow easy porting of iPhone apps to Palm’s webOS.
Perhaps more importantly, the PDK will allow devs to rewrite mobile apps that they’ve built for other platforms to run on webOS with minimal modifications. iPhone apps can be ported over in a matter of days, sources close to the company tell me, and they don’t really suffer any degradation in performance.
When we spoke with Palm reps at CES 2010, they indicated to us that the PDK was mainly a tool used for developing games. So we’re not sure what to expect next week and if this will actually impact apps for webOS. Palm’s mantra has been quality and not necessarily quantity. Trailing in the Apps Numbers race, that’s a convenient argument. The PDK developed games are certainly on par with other platforms, so perhaps this news will bring ports of better apps for the platform. We’re all for the quality over quantity, but outside of PDK developed games, the current crop of webOS apps does not best apps available on the iPhone. If the PDK can be used to port actual apps over to webOS, this would be great news for the webOS community and for developers. If it only takes days, we’re hoping Atebits will jump in and give us Tweetie 2 for webOS.
In case you haven’t heard, there is no lack of buzz regarding webOS 1.4. Palm has now released the update to our friends up north on Bell in Canada. Good news eh! So hit up the Update box if you haven’t already and celebrate webOS 1.4 along with that gold medal for men’s hockey.
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 by Christopher Meinck
Our friends at PreCentral get the goods on what we can expect in webOS 1.4. According to their sources (and they have good ones), the update will start hitting phones today. Updates have normally hit later in the day, early evening, so be on the lookout. If you get the update, be sure to hit us up on Twitter with a screenshot. You can find and follow us @everythingpre.
Fixes
Time Zone bug Fix
Network time sync bug fix to reflect accuratenetwork time
BT car-kit transition to device corrected
No EV-Icon bug fixed (random)
Random browser formatting bug fixed
Fixed bug that incorrectly displayed Sprint when actually was Digital Roaming
Enhancements
Phonebook Transfer
Supports Video Capture Capability
Performance enhancement within phone and calendar
Apps
Calendar
Dial phone # from within a meeting event
Allow custom Alerts sounds for Calendar event and reminders
Added AM – PM detail within Calendar events
Email
Embedded phone $ or email address (embedded inemail) can be easily added to Contacts app
New email sort options (date, Sender, Subject)
Return to inbox view after send – email
Messaging
Ability to forward SMS to email
Ability to dial phone # from SMS chat session (No need to open contact any longer
Press and hold on a phone # to get more options( Call, SMS)
Universal Search now includes EAS (outlook Exchange) GAL corporate address look up.
Application Launcher – Easier user interface providing usermore feedback during an application launch
Pre Button in gesture area blinks when notification pending
Added Adobe Flash 10 Beta – Palm Pre only
Supports Flash 10 Beta – download available in Palm AppCatalog
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 by Christopher Meinck
The official word from Palm was that webOS 1.4 would be available sometime in early February. According to a tipster at PreCentral, an email indicates webOS 1.4 will be available on February 15th. The email was sent to Sprint stores indicating upcoming software updates. This certainly looks promising for Sprint customers. We’re not sure if those of you on Verizon will receive the update on the same day.
The February 15th date isn’t set in stone, but this certainly looks promising. Anyone up for shooting videos on your webOS device?
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 by Christopher Meinck
Kalemsoft has released NesEM, a Nintendo NES emulator for webOS. The application is a port from their popular Palm OS app. NesEM allows you to run over 300 orginal NES games include PunchOut, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda and more. The application does not ship with the ROM’s needed, but those are available by searching the Interwebs.
NesEM supports four channel sound, game saving, automatic speed adjustment, key config control and anti-aliasing image smoothing. You can download a demo from Kalemsoft or from within Preware. The full version retails for $9.99.
For obvious reasons, this is not available in the Palm App Catalog.
So if classic gaming is your thing, you’d be hard pressed to find a better value than NesEM.
The webOS PDK, also known as the “plug-in development kit”, is the sole reason we’re starting to see all these amazing new games on webOS. However, up until now, the webOS PDK was distributed to a small group of developers. The big players such as EA and Gameloft have used their early access to deliver games like “Need for Speed”, “Let’s Golf” and “NFL 2010″.
PreCentral alerts us that Palm will offer up a public beta of the PDK in March. This is exciting for developers and will likely result in even more expansive games on the webOS platform. If the first batch of games are any indication, webOS owners are in for some great games in the not so distant future.
Palm has released webOS update 1.3.5.2 to European customers. You can hit the ‘Updates’ gift box to check for the update or simply wait for Palm to inform you of the impending update. As many of our friends in Europe know, webOS 1.3.5 offered some nice improvements to performance, battery life and support of PDK.
Zatz Not Funny spoke with SlingMedia’s mobile product manager and Palm’s webOS is currently being “evaluated”. The company has announced apps for iPhone, BlackBerry and last week they announced an Android client. We’re not sure if this due limitations in SDK or perhaps the market is not large enough yet.
PreCentral reports via Fierce Mobile that SlingMedia has announced a collaboration to support the Flash streaming protocols for the “smooth streaming of H.264 audio and video”. They theorize that when Flash support is offered in webOS 1.4, you’ll be able to run the full SlingPlayer app.
Call us skeptical, but we don’t see a Flash based app working on par with native apps available on other platforms. With more carriers, more webOS device owners, hopefully that will tip the scales and incentize SlingMedia to jump in and bring a proper SlingPlayer app to the App Catalog.
Palm provided us with a demonstration of their new video camera application. As you’ll see from the video, the whole process of shooting, editing and sharing video is very easy and well done. Sharing options include YouTube, MMS or via email. The current video is being shot in HVGA, but Palm representatives confirmed it will be VGA at release. The recording format is H.264. The addition of video camera capabilities will be available to all webOS device owners in the upcoming webOS 1.4 update that will be available over the air sometime in February.
