David M Williams
Thursday, 01 October 2009 14:34
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
It appears Palm is seeking to follow Apple’s footsteps in gaining a reputation for inconsistent and spurious rejections and removals of iPhone and iPod Touch applications. In this case, Palm has resisted including a free application because the source code is attainable elsewhere.
The Palm Pre smartphone launched just several months ago along with the Palm App Catalog which, like the iPhone App Store, makes available commercial and free software for the device which can be downloaded over the air.
You need not look far to find developers upset with Apple’s handling of their applications. We know about Google Voice being pulled, about the Commodore 64 emulator being rejected, about the sheer uncertainty as to when updates will be made available and so forth.
iPhone developers might take small comfort to learn things might not be rosier in the Palm Pre world, according to the experiences of at least one developer.
Jamie Zawinski – of original UNIX Netscape Navigator and Netscape Mail and News client fame – produced two Palm Pre programs just days after the unit was available, namely a restaurant Tip Calculator and a port of Dali Clock, a digital clock whose digits melt into their next shape.
Zawinski submitted the apps to Palm for inclusion in the App Catalog. He signed up online, signed and returned the necessary legal documents but to this day still finds his programs absent.
Palm,
Zawinski says, made him jump through dozens of hoops. First, Dali Clock 2.31 was rejected because Palm claimed it had a policy all App Catalog applications use version numbers lower than his 2.31 port.
Zawinski says Palm’s policy required version numbers “less than 1.0.0” but I think it would be very odd for Palm to reject v1.0 applications. I am guessing he meant “less than 2.0” or “less than 1.1”. In any case, the surprising decision was made by Palm to reject his program solely because of its version number.
Nevertheless, Zawinski complied with all the obstacles Palm put in his way. Until finally in mid-August he was told “you can only distribute your app via the Palm App Catalog. Do not make your app available on your website or anywhere other than the App Catalog.”
