Palm needs a homerun, but bunted with the webOS SDK

The problem isn't that Palm bunted. It's not like they wanted to bunt or consciously made that choice. The problem is that it's the only move they could make. It took Apple a year to get their SDK out. Palm is a smaller company and while, doubtless, they learned a lot from Apple's experiences, it doesn't change the fact that it takes a while to make a good SDK.

Hopefully, over time, Palm will be able to do better. But it's amazing that Palm was able to put together such a nice device in the first place. If they didn't paint themselves into a corner that they can't get out of, they could extend the SDK to do what it's currently lacking while getting an SDK out that handles many applications today.

Often, it comes down to doing what you're able to do. You can't just choose the best. You have to work at it and that takes time. Hopefully Palm will be able to do well :-).

(Disclosure: I work at Palm)

The SDK that was released is the same SDK that almost all of Palm's apps are built on. If, as the article says, it's a solid 1.0 release with a "nice OS and user interface", then it must be possible to build great software with the SDK.

I imagine that eventually Palm will figure out a way to provide native access to the features he wants.

I just hope Palm is more developer friendly than Apple. Specifically, I don't want to have to deal with certificates and the App Store anymore, but I'm skeptical of Palm making it that open.

Sure, it would have been better if these features were in a 1.0 release, but Palm doesn't need to take away Apple customers right now. There are a lot of people who don't want AT&T service or don't want to pay the extra for the iPhone plan. So the market is large and growing, especially as more people buy the Pre (and Palm's upcoming devices for AT&T and Verizon).

Sure apps won't not be as "rich" at first, but there is still going to be a demand for the simpler ones. It may be harder to have, and get profits from, a "hit" for the iPhone. However, I bet your expected return on a simple Pre app is higher than releasing an iPhone app. The app store is so big it's hard to get noticed. You could even just clone existing iPhone apps. They sold once, they will sell again.

Once the SDK is advanced enough to let you have more access to the hardware, the market will be ready for those apps. Sure it'd be great to have them now, but they'll come. In the meantime, you can build the easier apps.

I suppose if you really wanted to, you could get access to it as long as you're willing to do a little reverse engineering. Some ideas:

1. Direct Framebuffer (http://predev.wikidot.com/directfb). I don't know much about OpenGL programming, but this might be able to be used. Doom runs on it, so perhaps there's a way through that.

2. The built in apps must execute some type of native code. For example, when the phone app initiates a call. Does it somehow make a call to a local shell script or app? You could use that to write stuff in whatever language you wanted and have it talk back to js app. The tools are available to compile executables for the platform.

Be the first to figure this out and you've got a great head start, because I'm confident this is how Palm will do it. Or even release your app outside the App Store; you don't need to "root" a Pre to install an app. A person downloads an "installer" on their computer, plugs in their Pre, and runs the program. It installs it on the phone over USB. No hacking required. You'd have to do payment processing yourself obviously.

Note: I also recognize that games make up a large number of iPhone app purchases, but there are still a lot of games you could make for the Pre with the SDK's limitations.