Palm gets serious about 3D gaming on webOS
By Darren Murph 
posted January 7th 2010 2:30PM
posted January 7th 2010 2:30PM
Update: The official release is out, and we're told that titles from EA, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Laminar Research are available to users today. Head on past the break for a more thorough look.
Seven 3D games were introduced today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers:
* "Need for Speed(TM) Undercover" (EA Mobile)
* "The Sims(TM) 3" (EA Mobile)
* "MONOPOLY(TM)" (EA Mobile)
* "Asphalt 5: Elite Racing" (Gameloft)
* "Let's Golf!" (Gameloft)
* "Glyder 2" (Glu Mobile)
* "X-Plane" (Laminar Research)
Five other mobile games were also introduced: EA Mobile's "Tetris(R)," "Sudoku," and "SCRABBLE(R)," and Gameloft's "The Oregon Trail" and "Brain Challenge."
Good news.
@MegaWatts Indeed. I just picked up my like new Pre at christmas for only 300 euros... (500 new at o2 germany).
Now I am partying I did. This is really great news. Native apps on the Pre, Flash (as needed... by tapping on the flash movie in the browser), ... the only thing I'm missing is the announcment of an improved IM-client.
I know webOS uses libpurple (from pidgin) to connect. So in theory it should be no problem to enable ICQ, and all the other missing IM-protocolls...
Also, I hope, I'll still be abled to keep that navi-ball-button flashing patch when I got a call/message while abscent...
@MegaWatts
After reading this post, I didn't completely let go of my mouse before grabbing for my Pre. Sadly, my mouse is in pieces.
It was worth it..
Late to the party are we webOS?
@pumapayam
Not really. Remember that WebOS just came out last year. Hasn't even been a whole year. The iPhone went a year or so before any apps.
@pumapayam
Plus the iPhone only got serious about gaming recently when the 3Gs came out with the better graphics.
@roxics Not really. iPhone OS took about a year and a half?
One year isn't bad at all.
@roxics Umm that isnt how you judge technology. Going with your logic i could release a brand new computer today with my brand on it running a 386 MHZ pentium 1 running DOS and you should be excited about it, since its my first computer i should have roughly 3 decades to catch up with the rest of the industry.
@(Unverified) If you went from a 80386 CPU to C2D-level CPU in just two decades, instead of three, it would be rather impressive.
It's not about release date, but about the time it takes one company to achieve what the other has. Palm has gotten an App Store with games in about a year, whereas Apple took longer.
I agree with you though, it's nothing to get excited over. More competition = better products for all, but I doubt Palm's App Store will ever gain the widespread recognition that Apple's has.
@(Unverified)
Not exactly, because this is software we're talking about. Palms hardware is already there. Even their OS is mostly there. So they should be up to speed shortly.
The point I'm addressing is time of development and saying that palm has been on the fast track.
@roxics That's true but Apple spent enough time designing the App Store system. All that Palm should do is copy the design, do some tweaks and make it a lil better. So I don't think nobody is better here. Both companies did well. The fact that Palm is now at Verizon is a good thing. Competition drives well in this business. I can't wait for the 27th's Apple Event.
@roxics That's true but Apple spent enough time designing the App Store system. All that Palm should do is copy the design, do some tweaks and make it a lil better. So I don't think nobody is better here. Both companies did well. The fact that Palm is now at Verizon is a good thing. Competition drives well in this business. I can't wait for the 27th's Apple Event.
@yulebellow
This is incorrect. We are just now starting to see a few games that actually are programmed for the 3GS.
The vast majority of iPhone games are designed for 2G/3G iPhone specs. Obviously this makes sense from a developer standpoint, as it includes all App Store customers and not just those with the newest equipment.
@roxics
What an idiotic statement and of course the iHaters would rank it up as soon as possible. Like with most things Apple was the first and had to create the app store when there was no single organized app stores period! get it? Why are there so many smart phones and decent UIs now days? Because Apple created the first one and all the other manufactures had to do was copy it. It takes more time to come out with things when you're inventing something entirely new and yet Palm had Apple's blueprint to look at and it still took them over a year! Can you imagine how far we would be back technologically if every company took as long as the original inventor to come out with a product? You must have a Pre and that's understandable with all the hype it was getting, it's an OK phone at best, but try not letting your biases come through so clearly.
@High
Saying "it still took them over a year!" show how little you know about hardware and software.
First of all, there were centralized app stores before, they're called linux repositories, and there were, and are apps to browse them (although the good ones have only come out recently). So it was not Apple's original idea. Hell, you could even argue that Valve's Steam digital content delivery system was, and is, an app store primarily for games.
Second, you don't understand development cycles and the mentalities of large corporation in the least. It's a race to the top, but when you're on top, there is a tendency to dawdle and stagnate. We see it with Microsoft all the time, with IE6, Windows XP, etc, and now with Apple and the iPhone. The need and drive to out innovate dies down and you lose momentum. Apple made a great but incomplete product in the iPhone. It lacked many features in its initial release which people forget. There was no app catalog, there was no video recording (still none for the 1st gen iphone), no 3D acceleration, no A2DP support, STILL no multi-tasking, the list goes on. Since their meteoric rise to the top of the market they helped reinvent, they've done... very little. They released new versions which were slightly faster, and began adding features it should've had to begin with, but that's about it. And every new iPhone OS release makes the older hardware sluggish.
By comparison, new firmware revisions for Android and WebOS tend to increase its speed and responsiveness more often than not, as well as battery life. When I got my Pre, my battery'd die just around the time I got home. Now, about 2 hours before I go home, it's still at 65% after being unplugged for about 10 hours now with moderate use. Apple, rather than streamlining their OS just releases new hardware to compensate for the slowdown. It's one of the reasons why my best friend ditched his iPhone for the Droid (the other was AT&T).
Palm did the same thing years ago. They launched the smartphone market almost singlehandedly, but then stopped innovating and became irrelevant. With the iPhone's release, they saw it as a chance to reinvent themselves and jump back into the game that they began playing before anyone else, and they're now experiencing a well deserved second renaissance. Who knows what'll happen in another 10 years?
@roxics
Errrrrrrrrr no, there were apps released around November of 07.
@yulebellow
Errrrrrrrrrrr no, iphone has been gaming since 08, try again genius.
@Cin
Stop talking out your arse, if Apple was innovating, why do they keep selling more phones. Some of you idiots are dumb, goddamn. I guess you must have been missing the yearly iphone event and new iphone released in March and June respectively with the next one coming in March. Damn hating is not good.
@roxics why is everything always compared to the iphone??? im getting sick of it. just let a phone be a phone on its own.
@High
Um Palm OS used to have an app catalog called AddIt, way before the iphone was even announced, so no apple was not the first to have an app store.
@dirtballrotten
Maybe because it's the most recognizable phone out there.
@Goona
"if Apple was innovating..."
I think you meant to say "wasn't innovating"
"...why do they keep selling more phones"
Because they have followers and name/brand recognition. People know what the iPhone can do. They're only beginning to learn what Android and WebOS can do. That's what happens when you're in the market for like 2 solid years before anyone else...
"I guess you must have been missing the yearly iphone event and new iphone released in March and June respectively with the next one coming in March."
You mean the events where the released the same phone over and over again with a slightly better specs? That's not innovation, that's stagnation. And don't even start talking about the OS. The only things new they've done with that are adding features it should've had to begin with, like A2DP and MMS.
They've been in the market for years, during a nice portion of which they had no real competition, and in that time, they've released one single phone over and over, the iPhone. Their "one-size fits all" mentality is flawed, as the recent surge in desire for Android handsets has shown. Not everyone wants the same thing. Not everyone wants to be tied into iTunes, not every developer owns a Mac, not everyone likes not having a physical keyboard. The list goes on.
"Damn hating is not good."
Says the guy who referred to me as an idiot?
You misunderstand, I'm not angry at Apple or resentful... I'm disappointed. They had so much time to do some really incredible things... yet they wound up stuck on the same carrier for years, an App Store with more garbage than good, a severely restrictive developer environment that alienates and outlaws devs and hackers who only want to improve the phone and customize it, and releasing the same phone over and over again.
What part of all of that seems revolutionary? They stopped innovating about 2 years ago as far as I'm concerned, and considering the fact that their competition was swiftly gaining and is now at their heels, unless they have something truly cataclysmic for the iPhone this year, they may well fall by the wayside. I don't know of anyone who's keeping their iPhone once the contract expires, and that's about 10 people off the top of my head...
@(Unverified) Lol, you can't even get a 386MHz Pentium 1.
This is why I support webOS and Palm over android. Besides the annoying android fanboys webOS actually looks decent and Palm is a respectable company.
Keep bringing that fire Palm.
@TheRogueFFAngel The PDK addresses one of my concerns about WebOS, but all it does is put it an an even footing with Android (see the NDK for JNI in Android). But I think the differentiating factor is that WebOS seems to have more quality control and better UI in general. Google needs to get some big game development companies like EA or at least indie studios to start working on Android, otherwise it's going to fall behind in that department. I still feel like Android is more open than WebOS though, and has more variety, but perhaps the quality suffers because of it.
@TheRogueFFAngel
Word, these Android clowns are a bunch of idiots that are polluting everywhere.
Ahh, Sims 3. Walk around with your face in your phone making sure your guy pees when he should.
YESSS!
way to go Palm!!
Gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child. You might want to correct that typo :)
If Palm's devkit is like Apple's it will take two years for major bugs (memory leaks, I'm talking to you) to be finally fixed and it will still have a broken implementation of OpenAL causing massive headaches to anyone who tries to use it.
Palm has a lot of work to do to catch up. This should have been a priority since day one, so I would be concerned it is an afterthought and will not be implemented well with the platform's hardware.
@(Unverified)
If you think they could have done everything they have done in the past 9 months, with 1000 employees, and NOT have had this in mind the whole time, you obviously have never done any OS development. Something like this would have to be part of the roadmap at least a year out.
@(Unverified) Hopefully with more devices being sold they can increase their resources and step up the pace.
@(Unverified)
Seeing as how the Pre shipped with a nice GPU which was dormant until the latest firmware update, I doubt it's an "afterthought", since if it were an afterthought, they'd have had to release new hardware for it (*cough*like the iPhone versions*cough*).
I don't know whether to be upset that they didn't announce an actual new phone, or happy that all of the updates will work on the existing hardware (except for high-end games for the Pixi, but I doubt that comes as a surprise to anyone).
And on the subject of afterthoughts that Apple had/s which the Pre didn't... A2DP, MMS, multitasking, OTA updates, the list goes on...
Dayum!
This is pretty cool, I wouldn't really ever use it but if I had a Pre it be cool to have a great looking 3D game on there just because. Sadly I have a Droid and I don't think the Android market allows people to put nice games on there.
DROID needs to get with it... its time the apps for android 2 and the Moto Droid get up to speed. THAT is the only place DROID suffers.
Exciting news. Congrats Palm. It looks like you all brought a lot to the table this year.
woohoo more choices as to the methods we can use to drain the battery even faster
Gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child. You might want to correct that typo :)
Why is that man wearing high heeled boots?
Go Palm! I love you!
God dammit Engadget, it's not lag, it's slowdown.
@(Unverified) Get a life you nerd.
I guess its time to go back to webos and dump my iphony..... on second thought ill wait a bit for iphone 4.0 see whats in store from apple.
Someone explains to me why this is not available on Android, where there's similar native SDK capabilities and far more users ? Palm made a big check or what ?
@shagrath
It's easier for Palm and Apple because they're both hardware manufacturers. Google however only makes the OS, and the OS is on such a massive variety of hardware that testing and finding what works where with what tweaking requires speaking to multiple parties from multiple companies from multiple countries (HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Asus, etc etc). As opposed to 1 hardware tech from Palm or Apple walking over and telling them flat out "This will work on our hardware, this won't, this is how we can fix it" etc.
@shagrath Also, as far as I know, Android apps are all pure java. So they'll be interpreted bytecode. It is indeed still possible to use 3D libs like opengl in java but this will never be as low level and high performing as C/C++.
So I think the only way for google to compete on that level is to also open the OS more than they did up to now and allow native code to run also... an Android PDK if you like :)
@flobo there's already an Android native kit with OpenGL and C++ support since October 2009, that's why I was asking why no big companies like EA is using it... Well I guess they will come soon enough
@shagrath Nice to see. Didn't know that. I was really expecting Palm to do this move this CES, so I bought a pre (not only for that... I also like webOS and the way it handles multitasking). If I knew, I might also have considered an android device...
Anyway: both of them would have been a better choice than the iPhone (at least for me). Love using my pre as mass storage (who needs iTunes) and all the other stuff you have to rape your iPhone for to make it do what you want (used to have the first gen iPhone jailbreaked with linux for sync... was hell :().