Palm opens up third-party webOS apps beta program

From InfoWorld: Those who've been waiting for the Palm Pre to become a meaningful competitor to the iPhone are one step closer on Tuesday, as Palm announced that it's beginning to take submissions for its App Catalog's e-commerce beta program.

Previously, the App Catalog had been restricted to a few hand-picked programs from those who'd submitted to Palm's early access program. As with the App Store, developers can submit both paid and free applications to Palm's App Catalog -- and that's not where the similarities end. Palm is allowing only a one-time fee for the download of an application, with developers receiving 70 percent of the program's revenues (out of which comes any applicable sales tax).

However, Palm's approval process for the beta program appears to be more selective than the App Store criteria, with a heavy emphasis on subjective criteria. According to the post on Palm's Developer Network Blog, applications must be "useful and engaing to users," feature an "appealing design," take advantage of the "webOS platform and device capabilities," and demonstrate "acceptable performance and response time."

View: Article @ Source Site