iPhone games ported to webOS in 'a matter of days' on tap for GDC?

EA has already said that it was able to get 3D games up and running on webOS in a "matter of weeks" using the OS' PDK (or Plug-in Development Kit), but it looks like Palm might be ready to step things up even further at GDC next week. While any official word will have to wait until then, John Paczkowski of AllThingsD says that he's heard from sources close to the company that Palm will be now demonstrating how iPhone apps can be ported to webOS "in a matter of days," and with virtually no degradation in performance. Not much more to go on that at the moment, unfortunately, but you can be sure we'll be there at GDC to how this and anything else Palm might have in store pans out.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[glamajamma Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:11PM]

Win!

[a dumb cat Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:26PM]

@glamajamma

Palm definitely needed some good news. Well, they knew of this already, but stockholders and analysts needed to hear this about a week ago. C'mon Palm, we're rootin' for you.

[werty1432k Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:27PM]

@glamajamma This would be HUGE for Palm! Hope to see it.

[emopoops Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:30PM]

@glamajamma fail. why cant they make there own games and use it with palm phones. why the heck do users by a palm and want to use iphone games or whatever on it? its rediculous! what an aweful concept.

[ziimpy Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:35PM]

@glamajamma I have a pre plus right now and if this thing got the majority of games and other useful applications as the iphone, it could be an easy contender for first place as the smartphone king right now and would squash my envy of iphone users.

[glamajamma Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:36PM]

@emopoops
Actually they are just games that work on the iPhone but can also work on WebOS.
They don't belong to iPhone. They just work on it.

[scobb Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:38PM]

@emopoops Why on earth would they re-invent OpenGL-ES? It does not belong to Apple. Are you suggesting that Apple should also not use an open standard?

[aubreyq Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:56PM]

@a dumb cat They also need to put more webOS phones out there. Well, AT&T said they'll have webOS phones this year, but I'd like to see it happen soon.

[DeveshRai Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:39PM]

Great News! I've been looking to retire my ageing iPhone 3G, hopefully the Pre is up to the task.

[NikAmi Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:44PM]

@emopoops Yeah, because Tetris, Monopoly, and Scrabble didn't exist before the iPhone...

[Wesscoast Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:36PM]

@NikAmi

and what advanced complicated games those are~~~

[julioangelortiz Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:37PM]

@emopoops Just like those fools who make games for PCs, XBox360, or PS3 and porting them to other platforms. I mean, why would they want to make money?

[rdrunner Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:42PM]

@glamajamma

Agreed!!! I'm a big apple fan myself. But this is good news for Palm. This news is much needed but may not be enough to turn the tide of pessimism. With over a lofty 45% of the stock's float sold short, there's isn't much breathing room for this company in the near future. I should be ashamed as i have done my part in shorting this company to kingdom come since the holidays. I'm fully out so i don't feel personally responsible anymore. However, all those bears will have to cover soon and this news if it comes to fruition may help Palm race to the bottom sooner. Then let the speculation start all over again!

[JeremyBenthem Posted Mar 5th 2010 7:38PM]

@scobb
it's not just OpenGL ES. They also have a lot of the same stuff; same resolution, multi-touch, motion sensor etc. Most of that "matter of days" is just recoding the Objective-C in C++. For those making enhancements, Palm has the advantage of having a base level of OpenGL ES 2, with Apple you have to worry about those still on 1.1

[iDamien Posted Mar 5th 2010 10:46PM]

@a dumb cat

Totally agree with you there. They really do have the groundwork to have monumental success this year.

No one likes to take note, but what Palm has done in only 9 months, took people like RIM, Microsoft, hell, even Apple years to accomplish.

[smith2sc Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:13PM]

bring em on, the more the better

[yankees368 Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:15PM]

OUT OF MEMORY! PLEASE CLOSE A CARD!

[mnotme Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:33PM]

@yankees368

How often do you open more than 50 cards?

http://www.precentral.net/palm-pre-plus-vs-palm-pre-multitasking-mayhem

[guroth Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:29PM]

@mnotme Well there's 52 cards in a deck, so it looks like they have more work to do.

[yankees368 Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:42PM]

@mnotme Have you personally owed a Pre? I have. At time, it was not even able to run a single application without requiring a reboot, which takes almost 5 minutes. Those demos you see of the pre "running" 50 apps is when it was freshly booted and nothing is in the memory. Try doing that after a couple hours of use.

[Roisen Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:19PM]

@yankees368

At least _I_ can appreciate that he was making a joke.. I'll uprank you

[Roisen Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:22PM]

@yankees368

Although you should stop taking your worst experience and acting like it's the standard case. 99% of the time the Pre can handle 10+ applications with ease, or a 3D game and 2 or 3 more apps

[davepermen Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:16PM]

3 days later, iphone sdk gets "security updates" that "fixes the possibility to easily port source to other platforms"

[scobb Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:35PM]

@davepermen The issue here is API related. A developer needs to recompile the application. They both use OpenGL-ES for the 3D gaming stuff. I kinda doubt Apple would want to break their own apps. This is not an emulator it is just the fact of using an open API. Also think POSIX.

[jarobusa Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:37PM]

@davepermen Sure Apple could do that but they would have to change the OpenGL-ES library, and hence break all current applications. Not going to happen. Notice the 'Open' as in Open Source.

[glamajamma Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:37PM]

@scobb
Yeah I don't know how that comment got high ranked.

[TheLionOfAzzalle Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:39PM]

@davepermen

Apple haters and their conspiracy theories...

Apple won't do anything of the sort hater.

This is good news for Palm Pre and Pixi owners and as an iPhone user I am happy for them.

[graey Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:42PM]

@davepermen
Probably. Luckily you can probably find the older 'insecure' SDK somewhere, and use that in a VM to quickly port your software.

[davepermen Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:51PM]

@scobb it was just a joke... i develop stuff myself, i know it's highly unlikely.. :) then again, it is apple. they hate palm. and palm loves to "steal stuff from apple".

[davepermen Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:52PM]

@TheLionOfAzzalle just a joke it was? based on what apple did with itunes, though.. so tellling "apple doesn't do such stuff" is not really true :)

[Sawawa Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:05PM]

@davepermen OpenGL is, well, open. This won't happen.

[vqro Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:28PM]

@davepermen I guess everyone missed the joke. It's friday after all.

[cherrybomb88 Posted Mar 5th 2010 7:48PM]

You all obviously have no sense of humor. The joke is referring to the whole iTunes/Palm Pre situation a while back... geezzx chill pills any1?

[CoinOperatedBoi Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:16PM]

I'm all for this, I have a Pre...but I wonder if maybe this is happening too late for Palm. Maybe they'll have some renewed life with a new device, guess we'll see. For now though at least I can enjoy more apps as they bring em. Now if the audio levels would just stop switching back and forth!!

[Hazdaz Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:18PM]

Why doesn't Palm make a much bigger deal about news like this?

Why doesn't Palm make a huge deal about the fact that their Pre could be used as a wifi hotspot?

Or the fact that their OS has some awesome multitasking?

There are so many cool things that the Pre does, but Palm doesn't seem fit to tell the world about. it's like Palm almost wants to fail.

(of course all the gadget blogs are to blame too - if Google announces even the most insignificant news, they will still hype the hell out of it)

[CraniusLupus Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:29PM]

@Hazdaz I was under the impression the WiFi hotpot ability went away

[markekai Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:34PM]

@CraniusLupus

They kept the ability for the Pre Plus VZW version, it's even in the newer commercials!

[Steve B Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:09PM]

@markekai
Don't you have to pay $30/month to use it though?

[IcerC Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:24PM]

@Hazdaz I agree. Got the talent to build just not market.

I tried to help market them a bit, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDFG8om-jK0

[Hazdaz Posted Mar 5th 2010 5:24PM]

@Steve B

Well how much does it cost with one of them separate wi-fi hotspot devices? Even if it's the same price per month (which is probably set by the carrier and not the phone maker), it still comes FREE with the Pre phone (the hardware part of it at least) and you don't have to carry a separate device. I mean it's a really cool feature built-in to have that (I believe) no other phone has, yet I have never seen a Palm commercial tout it.

Instead we get some pale-skinned ghost spout some poetic nonsense that seemed to not even have anything to do with the product.

[doutorpiranha Posted Mar 5th 2010 6:58PM]

@IcerC joshua topolsky commended you on your efforts in the podcast.

[IcerC Posted Mar 5th 2010 9:00PM]

@doutorpiranha
Thanks!
Just heard him yeah! Sweet.

[Leindurstit Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:19PM]

Oh great, I smell another lawsuit...

[keplenk Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:37PM]

@Leindurstit I was about to say that.

[glamajamma Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:39PM]

@Leindurstit
Law suit about what? Using similar system calls?

[jarobusa Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:39PM]

@Leindurstit who would Apple sue? The open source community? Gamesloft?

[htd Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:21PM]

palm pre needs to be on t-mobile/ATT as well. also it looks rather ugly, need better industrial design...

[electrobrains Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:25PM]

@htd
Don't be insipid. It's more important for a phone to be comfortable than look like a brick.

[Pookiewood Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:31PM]

@htd Ugly? LOL!

[Sawawa Posted Mar 5th 2010 4:53PM]

@htd Not sure what you're talking about. The Pre and Pixi are absolutely lovely phones.