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New privacy policy standards agreed to by world's major app store owners
The California Attorney General has struck a deal with the world's major app store operators that will see new privacy policy standards put in place. Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, RIM and Amazon have all agreed to require any software that uses personal information to provide a privacy policy that can be viewed in the store before an app is downloaded. The agreement will bring the various markets in line with the California Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires developers provide such a policy. In addition to providing links to the relevant documents in an obvious and consistent location, the companies will have to offer a simple way for users to report devs that violate the rules. For more details about the deal check out the PR after the break.
Zinio arrives for the Touchpad, with fashionable lateness
The Touchpad may no longer be with us, but that hasn't stopped Zinio from launching its reader app on HP's abandoned tablet. The tool hit the App Catalog earlier this week, bringing magazine subscriptions and single-issue purchases to users still clinging to their 9.7-inch slates. The newsstand is available as a free download, and, by all appearances, doesn't stray too far from the layout and functionality found on previous iOS and Android releases. News junkies can grab the app now, though according to some early users on PreCentral's forums, it may act a little buggy.
HP TouchPad 4G surfaces for pre-order on Amazon, wearing $700 price tag
It looks like the HP TouchPad 4G is inching its way closer to the market, now that the webOS tablet has made a pre-order appearance on Amazon. According to the listing, the 32GB slate will retail for a cool $700, sans contract -- about $100 more than its exclusively WiFi, equal-sized brethren. Given HP's recent discount spree, however, it may not be long before that price gets knocked down a few notches. Over the weekend, in fact, the company announced yet another promotion, offering $50 worth of App Catalog credit to users who purchased a TouchPad in the US between July 1 and August 4th. The offer is valid through December 31st, so check out the link below to find out how you can take advantage of it. [Thanks, Peter]
HP tells developers to start submitting apps for Pre 3, still on track for summer launch?
Summer's whittling away folks, and with it the promised window for Palm's HP's Pre 3. Last we heard, the flagship device would miss its launch window, but a new directive from the company suggests its release isn't too far off. Registered webOS developers received an email about an updated emulator and deets regarding the App Catalog's newfound acceptance of Pre 3 submissions. Speaking of digital storefronts, the company also noted the latter's expansion into the following territories: Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. Get this far? Hop on past the break and read the full communiqué yourself.
HP announces Pivot for TouchPad, the curated, magazine-like way to find some apps
Finding apps can be tough, especially when your Store or Marketplace is overwhelmed with a daily flood of debutantes. That's not exactly a problem for HP, whose App Catalog for the webOS 3.0 TouchPad officially launches on July 1st and will be, the company admits, a little spartan at first. But HP has a plan for a future flood of apps: Pivot. It's basically a curated digital magazine that will present a selection of apps someone at HP found interesting for whatever reason -- a way for users to discover new downloads and, more importantly, for niche developers to not get lost in the shuffle. HP hopes this will attract developers, taking a different approach from the competition, which often resorts to outright promises of cash to pique their interest -- but a few free TouchPads never hurts .
HP updates webOS App Catalog, brings carrier billing, promo codes, and (surprise!) a new icon
webOS users may shed that oh-so-familiar Palm shopping bag in favor of HP's new App Catalog. Beyond the blue icon, app seekers will discover support for promo codes and the ability to charge purchases to their mobile carrier (just like we've seen on the forthcoming tablets). As a nice surprise, initial reports suggest the software is faster and more responsive, though webOS 2.0 is required admission here, meaning everyone using version 1.4 is currently out of luck. While the long version number, 2.0.22300, caused speculation that HP's upgrade was released prematurely, it seems here to stay, with support representatives confirming it's an intended release. So wave farewell to that Palm icon -- it's time to start hassling devs for promo codes and running up that mobile bill.
HP revamping webOS App Catalog for tablet use, adding carrier billing and magazine-like view
If HP wants webOS to be a competitive mobile ecosystem, the platform's app store has an awful lot of catching up to do -- but in terms of raw features, it sounds like the company plans to get with the program soon. PreCentral attended a developer presentation at MWC 2011 where HP showed off a brand new version of the App Catalog specifically designed for the tablet-friendly webOS 3.0, and found it will come with a handful of features that should make it eminently more useful. As you can see in the image above, there are presently four tabs, but two of them are worth calling out: the "Browser" is said to be a magazine-like interface for browsing through apps, while the "Saved" tab lets you bookmark apps you're interested in to consider for purchase or download later on. Perhaps more importantly, the process of actually paying for programs should be streamlined quite soon: HP told attendees that carrier billing and promo codes would find their way into the webOS App Catalog by summer at the very latest, in time for a webOS 3.0 launch, which suggests that it could possibly hit smartphones even a mite sooner.
Palm retroactively refunding $50 webOS app submission fee -- each and every one
Palm's made a few half-baked attempts at wooing developers in the past, like that time in October when it waived the fees and review process for open-source apps (but not App Catalog entries) or when it provided discounted handsets that happened to carry a large carrier-specific ball and chain. This week, Palm's decided to be a bit more generous -- it's eliminating the $50 App Catalog submission fee entirely and putting every last cent back where it came from. With only 2,684 apps in the store, that's just $134,200 in total, but symbolically it's a very welcome gesture, no? According to the official Palm Developer Center Blog, developers should see credits appear in their PayPal accounts soon -- though perhaps not soon enough to spend it on the fruit of their fellow man's labor at 50 percent off.
Nearly every app in Palm's webOS catalog is 50 percent off
That's right, deal seekers and Palm fanatics: you can now get (almost) every single app in the webOS catalog for half off until July 9th. There are a few listed exceptions, but hit up the catalog and get downloading. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
webOS App Catalog, Palm Developer Center down leaving 'install failed' messages in their wake
Just a day before the Pre Plus launches on AT&T, current Palm owners are experiencing all kinds of problems related to the App Store and their Palm Profiles. Reports indicate the problems started last night, since then users haven't been able to download new apps or update existing ones from the catalog, while those unlucky enough to have tried a reset have had trouble signing back into their Palm profile in the cloud, and have lost some information like call logs and had to resync their various accounts in webOS. The Palm Developer Website is also down, tossing a "back in a few hours" sign in the window and going out for a few afternoon mimosas. For now, PreCentral posters recommend taking the device off of network time and resetting it to any day prior to today which will allow apps to install and update without issue. A post on the official Palm blog indicates things should be back to normal "soon" so AT&T customers can hopefully avoid any date/time trickery just to get their Foursquare checkins going. Update: Palm says everything should be back to normal. Phew. Thanks, Marcio! [Thanks, William]
Facebook for webOS gets a much-needed, and much-appreciated, 1.1.0 update
After a disappointing initial effort, Palm has unleashed version 1.1.0 of its webOS Facebook app. Currently only available via the update function but not the standard App Catalog, users will find new and improved access to their inbox, all their friends' photo albums, profiles, direct photo uploading, friend search and a list view for upcoming events and birthdays. The first thing we noticed was the initial news feed now matches the notification preferences set on the standard webpage stopping the inevitable flood of Farmville updates we blocked so long ago. Features still missing include chat, video and the ability to respond to friend requests but with a distinctly faster and tighter experience, it's certainly surpassed the mobile webpage as the best way to access Facebook on the Pre. Can't reach the update button right now? Check our gallery for a few more images or this video demo from PreCentral embedded after the break. [Thanks, @Isaac] %Gallery-87251%
DirecTV DVR Scheduler quietly arrives in the WebOS App Catalog
Just a few days after making debuting on the Android Market, DirecTV has unleashed its DVR Scheduler app for WebOS phones. No surprises here, the usual program guide searching (for everyone) and remote DVR scheduling features (DirecTV customers with the right set-top boxes only) are in effect for the rock bottom price of $0. We've got a few additional pictures of the app here, but it's just as simple to get on your Pre or Pixi so why not roll over to the App Catalog and hit that download button? %Gallery-84325%
webOS paid apps coming to Europe in March 2010
Okay, so this is quite the lag from October's North American availability, but at least when the paid portion of Palm's App Catalog rolls out across Europe it shouldn't experience the stuttering start it suffered back in the US of A. Palm has excitedly blurted out the news on its developer network blog, but not without the requisite garnishings of buzzwords like "leverage," "freedom," "choice," "control," and "speed," as well as something about "faster cycle times" -- all of it designed to get more developers onboard. Kinda ironic the company is boasting about fast cycle times when it can't transition its paid Catalog to Europe in less than six months, but hey -- the Pre already has that one killer app, and it's free, so what do you care? [Thanks, Ben]
Palm Pre plays Need for Speed, undercover (video)
While Palm's Pre is many things to many people it still can't game. Oh sure, it'll play Magic Fortune Ball like a champ but when it comes to intensive 3D action the Pre is as helpless as a would-be terrorist trying to ignite his underwear. See, webOS and the Mojo SDK currently can't exploit the GPU the way other smartphone platforms can. Rewind a few weeks, however, and we're reminded of a video showing EA's Need for Speed Undercover running impossibly smooth on a Pre. At the time, the video and claims of the device running Flash were shot down as fake largely due to the accompanying screen caps of the purportedly new App Catalog. Well guess what? Those screen caps were vindicated today with the webOS 1.3.5 update that just so happened to launch a new App Catalog matching the leaked images, exactly. That lends credence to the video then doesn't it, while hinting at future apps and games with full OpenGL graphics support. Is that the big reveal at CES alongside enhanced Pre+ and Pixi+ handsets headed to Big Red? We'll find out shortly enough -- until then check the gameplay after the break. [Thanks, Brian K.]
webOS 1.3.5 to finally kill off app storage limit?
There's no debating it: having 8GB of onboard storage on your phone is great. What's even better, though, is if you can actually use it -- and currently, owners of Palm Pres and Pixis are stuck with an arbitrary limit for curious technical reasons that caps app installations after a couple hundred megabytes and change. Back in the day when the App Catalog had a few dozen submissions, that was fine and dandy -- but these days, owners are staring down the barrel of a selection more than 500 apps deep, so the time's definitely come to put this annoyance to bed. PreCentral is reporting that webOS 1.3.5 will finally kill this one by moving app storage to another partition on the device's memory -- the media partition -- which has about 7GB free on a completely virgin phone. Coincidentally, this is the same partition that gets used when you hook up mass storage mode on a PC, so to prevent unencumbered copying of apps off the device, Palm will allegedly be employing some sort of on-the-fly encryption that keeps apps secure while connected. Next step, Palm: microSD expansion so we can install each and every one of those 500-plus apps. What do you say?
Palm demos web-based Ares SDK for webOS
Currently, mobile entrepreneurs wishing to hawk their wares on the Pre (or Pixi, or unnamed webOS device of the future) use a software development kit from Palm called Mojo, a stack of Java-based tools that must be installed, studied, understood, loved, and respected before serious development can get underway. Palm sees that as a barrier of entry for web-oriented developers who want to make the leap to mobile apps, though, which is why they've crafted a new SDK called Ares that's based entirely on web technologies -- in fact, there's no install at all, apparently. Much of the interface is said to be drag-and-drop with enough JavaScript exposed to make your local .com designer feel right at home, potentially opening the app landscape to a whole new set of folks -- and considering that the App Catalog is tens of thousands of goodies behind the App Store and Android Market, they can use every loyal dev they get.
Palm pulls paid apps due to major bug allowing free app downloads
After mere hours of App Catalog-stravaganza, the paid apps have been removed for the time being by Palm due to a major flaw in purchase verification. From what we've gathered from the seedy underbelly of the internet, an exploit involving building your own dummy application with the same name as a paid application allowed folks to download a free "update" to these falsified shells and score for-purchase apps galore without dropping a cent. Whether or not this was the only exploit afoot we're not sure, but it sounds like plenty of folks found ways to nab apps for free because Palm has clamped down hard on distribution for the time being. Optimistically, the company claims it should have the Catalog back up by tomorrow morning, but if the failure is really as severe as it sounds, we won't be holding our breath.Update: And... they're back. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in; picture courtesy of glamajamma]
Palm throws the doors open: review-free app distribution over the web, open source developers can hop in for free
Well, things just got interesting. The very evening of the App Catalog's launch of paid apps, Palm has made a very different kind of announcement: it's going to let developers skip out on the App Catalog if they so choose. Devs will be able to submit an app to Palm, who will turn around and give them a URL for open distribution of the app over the web -- without a review process getting in the way! The App Catalog will still exist for those who want to use it of course, with a $50 entrance fee to get an app inside -- and we're guessing it'll remain the only way to distribute paid apps -- but the new URL distribution should decentralize things just a little bit. In other good news, Palm will be dropping the $99 annual developer fee for folks building open source apps, and hopefully that free ride applies to App Catalog entry as well, though now there's web distribution to make it less of a sticking point. Palm's also going to open up its analytic data to developers, and even is giving away Pres and Touchstones to the audience members of the little shindig privy to this announcement -- clearly the company is making a strong play for developers, and who doesn't like to be loved? [Thanks, Lawrence]
Paid apps now live in webOS App Catalog, Air Hockey comes first
The first paid apps are finally starting to filter into Palm's App Catalog, giving us all another great reason (after our daily caffeine fix has been properly handled, of course) to blow a buck or two every day of our lives. First up is none other than Air Hockey, an app genre that seems to be taking every platform by storm -- we never really thought that the true Dynamo experience could translate well to a couple of fingers on a phone's display, but we're just $1.99 away from finding out for sure. [Thanks, Joe]
Paid apps hitting the Pre tomorrow?
The release of webOS 1.2 got all of the stars aligned for a barrage (or, at the very least, a trickle) of paid applications to start hitting the Pre, and the word on the street is that the first of those will be dropping tomorrow, October 2 -- for users in the US, anyhow (Canadians apparently need to wait a while longer, a problem that Android users up there are all too acquainted with). The company will smartly be tying purchases to users' Palm Profiles, meaning you'll be able to redownload previously bought apps on any device you choose as long as your account is currently tied to it. Of course, the big question is what apps will be available to blow some cash on in the first round of Catalog approvals -- what's everyone hoping for?
