Palm has done its darnedest to keep the riffraff away from webOS development while it finishes up its Mojo SDK for webOS development, but the floodgates have finally opened with an opportune leak of Mojo to Torrent-vill. Naturally, Palm will still be locking out unapproved developers from releasing their creations to the App Catalog for the time being, but this should hopefully give the everyman a chance to hone apps in anticipation of a day of approval -- and should really beef up the homebrew community in the meantime. The other good news is that Palm is actually adding developers to its "early access program" at a fairly rapid pace, announcing that it doubled its membership this week, and plans to double it again next week. It's all coming together.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: The original leak was strictly Windows-style, but PreThinking notes that it's available for Mac now as well.

According to Dieter over at PreCentral, real, honest-to-goodness usable apps are starting to "trickle out" for the Pre / webOS. Apparently utilizing a loophole in the operating system which allows unsigned apps to be sideloaded through email, homebrewers have taken to the interwebs with small utilities like the tip calculator (pictured above). This comes just a day after a group of DIY'ers figured out a workable solution for getting software onto the phone without rooting, so obviously Pre hacking is moving along at a healthy clip. These are -- of course -- very early applications, so don't expect perfection, and there seems to be some concern that Palm might want to patch up this hole, as it leaves the phone vulnerable to less altruistic endeavors. While the latter point is reasonable to consider, we do have a piece of advice for the folks at the front of this movement: don't wait and worry on how Palm will react to this stuff. It's important to push platforms like webOS, and the Pre needs all the love it can get on the development side right now.

Read - Right now: Install a Homebrew App without Hacking
Read - Homebrew Apps Tricking Out, but be careful

There have been no shortage of custom apps hitting the Pre already, including a number of old favorites, but all have required a little bit of roto-rooting ahead of time to lay the groundwork for such non-authorized code. That might change in the very near future thanks to the work of a trio of dedicated deviant coders going by the handles xorg, simplyflipflops, and Shaya Potter. Over the span of just a few days they managed to figure out how to package and sign custom apps in such a way that anything can be installed on a completely stock phone -- the only catch is they're waiting to see what Palm has to say about it before they release a full how-to. Since the company has its own plans of making most developers wait at least a few months before setting them free we can't imagine the response is going to be: "This is totally awesome, please tell the world our secrets." But, we'd be happy to be wrong.

[Thanks, Bo]

Sick of having to use your inconvenient mouse and keyboard to do "internet searches" for ROMs of your favorite retro games? Well a gentleman named Matthias might just have the answer to your prayers -- a USB SNES cartridge adapter. The enterprising DIY'er has created a combo hardware and software solution that allows you to plug in your dusty carts directly to your rig, and see the ROMs appear as standalone files which you can then load into the emulator of your choice. Apparently there are still some kinks to work out (like getting data rates up for larger games), and Matthias already has plans underway for a multi-system solution. Still, this is impressive stuff, even if it means we'll have to repurchase any titles we're missing from reputable online auction houses. Hey, at least it'll cut down our visits to "Russian porn sites." Check out the video of the whole thing in action after the break.

So, you want to be a webOS developer, huh? That's great kid, we're excited for you, but there's a catch: Palm won't be handing out an actual SDK to most people until the end of Summer. In a post just published on the Palm Developer Network Blog, reps from the company say that although they've been cranking away on getting their full SDK in shipshape (the version given out to current devs is apparently pretty rough), they won't have anything for a broader audience anytime soon. In their words:

With the Pre now in customers' hands and reports of webOS hacks in the news, we know that you are more anxious than ever to get access to the SDK and start developing for webOS.

We've been working very hard on the SDK and are eager to open access on a wider scale, but the software and the developer services to support it just aren't ready yet.

This should come as a bit of a blow to developers hoping to get cracking on Pre software, and will unquestionably turn those who can't bear the wait towards the fully stocked iPhone or Android platforms. However, Palm does say that they'll be opening the program up a bit wider, stating in the post that they plan to crank the number of devs with the early SDK in their hands up from "hundreds to thousands" over the next few weeks. Apparently, that's part of process the company is beginning to ration out access, building to a full release.

Another bit of puzzling wordsmithing in this post comes in the form of the company's stance on homebrew and DIY "experiments" (their words) which have come to light in the past couple of weeks. So says Palm:

As on any popular platform, we recognize that some developers will experiment in ways that cross official boundaries, but we believe that our formal offerings – and community efforts built around those offerings – will provide the best experience for the vast majority of webOS developers and users.

So while it's not exactly a keep-off-the-grass statement, it certainly reads vaguely as to whether or not the company will lock out jailbreakers hoping to dive deeper into webOS. Further confusing the matter? Palm has just released the Linux source code used to compile the Pre's firmware, making the possibility of cooked / custom ROMs a very serious reality, and obviously opening the floor to a lot of said experimentation. Mixed messages? Yes. Our word to Palm right now? Put every effort into getting that SDK out, or you're at risk of quickly burning through all the good will you've just engendered.

Update: We've added some info above which reflects Palm's statement that it will be considerably widening its pool of developers over the next few weeks with access to the early SDK.

Read - An update on the early access program and the SDK
Read - Open source packages

We've seen a tremendous explosion in the webOS hacking scene ever since the Pre's firmware image leaked out -- between the easily-accessible restore more, Linux foundations and the directly-accessible HTML / CSS / Javascript application code, we've already seen everything from minor tweaks to full on NES emulation to Sprint activation hacks. In short, things are wide open at the moment, and people (including us) are excited by the possibilities -- but that doesn't mean Palm has to play along. In fact, two recent developments have us worried for the future of this happy little scene -- first, Palm's apparently forbidding the Pre Dev Wiki from posting any information about data tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period, and apparently threatening to have the site shut down if it happens:

We have been politely cautioned by Palm that any discussion of tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period (and perhaps beyond-we don't know yet) will probably cause Sprint to complain to Palm, and if that happened then Palm would be forced to react against the people running the IRC channel and this wiki.

Yeah, that's pretty aggro for a company that needs to court all the developer support it can. We're not sure what'll happen after Sprint's exclusivity runs out, but we can't imagine any other carriers are going to be thrilled about hacked tethering options either, so we'd say Palm's going to keep the pressure on until unlocked GSM webOS devices hit the scene -- and we can almost guarantee that tethering hacks are going to make it into the wild regardless of Palm's actions.

Even worse for hackers, Palm's taking an unusually aggressive approach to webOS system updates -- they're mandatory. According to the support docs, webOS updates are automatically downloaded in the background within two days of being available, and they're required to be installed within a week of the download -- after seven days and four install prompts, the phone will give you a ten-minute countdown and then automatically begin installing the update. Sure, we can understand why Palm would want all of its devices to be updated, and we know that a lot of webOS system foundations are in flux while the Mojo SDK is being finalized, but forced updates seem extremely heavy-handed to us -- it's one thing to try and maintain control over a platform, it's another to keep it with an iron fist. Of course, it's probable that we'll see a hack to bypass all of this extremely soon, so maybe it'll all work itself out, but we'd really like to see Palm develop an official policy friendly towards hacking and homebrew and stick to it -- the Pre and webOS have attracted a lot of talent in the past two weeks, and it'd be a shame to lose it.

[Via PreThinking; thanks, Justin]

Read - Pre Dev Wiki tethering policy
Read - Palm webOS updates support doc

Sure, once you get Doom onto a device there isn't much stopping you in the homebrew department, but we thought the implementation of an NES emulator on webOS outside of the Classic environment was worth noting -- even if it happens to be astoundingly easy to pull off. All it requires is a quick trip to root on the device a compile of the FCEUltra NES emulator for Linux and bam, it's good to go. Hit up the read link for instructions (we're sure we're simplifying things just a tad) -- and no, the incredible appropriateness of using a Contra ROM to kick things off hasn't escaped us.

It's begun. Although lacking a general release of the SDK, the first homebrew apps have emerged thanks to last night's leaked WebOS root image. The first application puts a stake in the ground by displaying a simple "hello world" on the screen. Unfortunately, the code overwrote the pre-installed Sprint Nascar application... oh wait, that's probably a good thing. Devs have also started tampering with existing code to disable the shutter sound on the camera while leaving the rest of the sounds enabled. Now why would somebody want to do that?

Update: New image from an excited developer that shows scm6079's work over at PreCentral evolving with a 5-second photo timer and more. We're being told that several members of the Pre hacking team consist of old-school PalmOS hackers from the Samsung i300 days. Now if Palm can just lure back the rest of its developers smitten by Android and the lure of App Store riches then they might just make something of this fledgling smartphone platform.

[Thanks, Scott M. and C.J.]

The intersection of PSP 3000 and Hack St. has thus far been a pretty lonely little place, so we're pleased to announce that the ChickHEN project is definitely gaining some momentum. According to one extra special YouTube video, hacksters are now able to run the TIFF exploit and boot into a homebrew enabler environment on a PSP 2003 and a PSP 3000 running 5.03 firmware. The code is seen surviving a reboot, and both the system software and MAC address can be changed. While not ready for prime time yet, this does pave the way for emulators, PSP uCLinux, and all of those other things that keep all you homebrew fans happy at night. Video after the break, if you dare.