Dave Balmer, Palm webOS developer extraordinaire, is jumping from the creation to the support side of the development field by joining Palm’s Mojo SDK development team. Dave, who runs Gobico Games and built the popular webOS games Wobble Words (swoon) and Poker Drops, was recruited to join the Mojo SDK team and, as he puts it, to help “take a great SDK to new heights.” We’ll agree that the SDK needs some new heights, and are excited to see an accomplished developer like Dave joining the team.

If you’re fearful that your Gobico Games apps are going to fall be the wayside, fear not. Dave assures us that he’ll still be working on improving Wobble Words and Poker Drops, and may even push out some new apps if time permits. He’s also going to continue work on his open source JavaScript and HTML5 app framework “Jo.”

So congratulations to Dave! And golf claps to Palm for picking up another fine programmer to keep pushing the SDK forward. Now bring on those APIs!

Source: Palm Developer Center Forums

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Okay, so maybe it’s more like Palm Developer Weekend, but they’re calling it Palm Developer Day, so we’ll just go with that. Friday April 23rd and Saturday the 24th will see current and potential webOS developers descending on the Palm corporate campus in sunny Sunnyvale, California, to partake in a number of sessions and rub elbows with the Palm Developer Relations Team.

A $25 pre-registration fee will net an attendee access to all sessions, meals (they had some pretty kick-ass pizza last time they did something like this), and even a gift of the commemorative type.

Topical matter for the sessions will include:

• Intro to webOS
• Porting Apps to webOS
• Advanced webOS
• Marketing Your Apps: The Business of webOS Development
• Creating 3D Games for webOS
• Effective Debugging Techniques
• What’s Coming Next in webOS

Yes, it’s not just a Mojo SDK code-a-thon. There’ll be talk of app porting, 3D gaming with the PDK, and of high importance for any developer looking to make a buck or two: marketing. And is that a peak at the future we see there? We think it is.

Pre-registration is open now.

UPDATE: As Lisa from Palm has informed us in these here comments, the Palm Developer Day could almost be considered two separate events. Friday will be "more of a webOS bootcamp" for new developers, while Saturday will be the Developer Day with the keynote, programming sessions, and – this is cool – "office hours" where a developer can get one-on-one time with the Developer Relations Team.

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Citing concerns over reliability due to new API requirements from Google, the developer of gDial Pro has decided to pull his app from the App Catalog. Here’s the message posted on gDial Pro’s Facebook page:

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are not going to be able to provide a reliable service as users have come to expect. We have decided we would rather pull the plug now than have users continue to experience disruptions due to various changes outside of our control. All subscribed users should already see a refund in their Paypal account. It was a crazy ride, but for now it’s over.”

Those circumstances are the new Google Voice APIs we discussed earlier in the week, and how the updated requirements for Google Voice are incompatible with the current restrictions of webOS and the Mojo SDK. While the door was very clearly left open for the return of gDial, we can’t see that happening until Google Voice APIs and webOS capabilities are on the same page.

While we are saddened to see a great application like gDial Pro disappear and frustrated that there is a disconnect in the access needed for powerful services like Google Voice and the access provided by webOS, we do have to applaud Nathan’s (gDial Pro’s developer) do-it-right-or-go-home attitude. A half-baked and unreliable user experience is not in the best interests of any user nor any serious developer. All that said, we do look forward to the day when the stars will align and gDial Pro can come back and get Google Voice action again going on webOS.

Thanks to amateurhack, Alben, and hparsons for the tip!

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It’s a question we’ve been pondering for a while, and with much more intensity in recent days: does Google care about Palm webOS? It is something we have to wonder about, with Google Maps on webOS lagging greatly behind its iPhone and Android counterparts, webOS being at first excluded from the Buzz party and then only invited inside the lobby, and the general lack of effort Google seems to be publicly exerting in getting their products to work to their full potential on webOS.

It all came to a head last week, with Google making a change to the way Google Voice works that ended up breaking webOS Google Voice clients, such as the popular gDial Pro. Nathan, the developer of gDial, learned that the change was not a move to break compatibility with unofficial Voice clients like gDial, but a natural progression of the development of the Google Voice system. In fact, Google has no problems with such unofficial clients and is pretty much willing to turn a blind eye to them so long as they aren’t acting in nefarious ways. Unfortunately, that blind eye doesn’t come with any support.

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Games can very easily be credited with a good portion of the success that the iPhone platform has seen. In terms of playability and graphics, the iPhone and iPod Touch rival the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. While it may be a while before we see such powerful games on webOS, the developers are doing what they can to make impressive apps with the tools provided by Palm’s Mojo SDK.

One of those game developers, Conniption Entertainment, has released two similar games to the webOS App Catalog: Zombie Invasion and its Christmas-themed brother Shotgun Santa. The graphics of these shooter games are surprisingly robust for the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript tools the SDK provides. Both games are stationary shooters where you, well, you fight off a zombie invasion. The more zombies you kill, the higher your points total, and the further you’ll advance up the leaderboards. But the more days you survive, the worse the zombiepocalypse grows.

Zombie Apocalypse and Shotgun Santa by Conniption Entertainment are both available in the App Catalog for $0.99 each.

Developers, interested in having a video of your app on PreCentral? Post your video to YouTube and then put a link in this thread on the PreCentral forum and we’ll check it out.

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[ youtube link ]

Color us skeptical, but right now we have little reason not to believe PreCentral forum member Casperstar and the above video that he posted. Yes, that is a Palm Pre playing Electronic Arts’ Need For Speed Underground, and playing it well – like an iPhone. Obviously, something like this just isn’t possible given the current web tools-based Mojo SDK, it’s not even something that’s possible with the current GPU-disabled implementation of webOS.

While this could very well be a well-timed video, smoke, and mirrors show, we’re inclined to believe that it is the real deal, especially after corroboration by reliable inside-information forum member Modular. Casperstar claims that the video is of a friend’s Pre, a friend that works at Palm and is apparently willing to not only let it be videotaped, but even sent in two screen caps of the App Catalog on his device. The images show a view of a NFS-2G app and an apps list counting to 495 (!). While something like this would be easy to Photoshop together, there’s enough rough edges to the app view that give us a definite work-in-progress vibe. Then there’s that mention of requiring Nova 1.3.X – if you’ve been with the Palm community for a few years you may remember the rumblings of a Nova device or OS having been in development in Sunnyvale.

All that said, we’re hopeful that this is the real deal, and it shows that Palm has made more behind-the-scenes progress than this blogger expected. An update to webOS that enables the GPU and an update to the SDK that provides native access for apps like this would be a huge huge huge (yes, triple huge) coup for Palm and would quickly silence critics of the lack of quality apps. Is this something we’re likely to see soon? Boy, we hope so, but we wouldn’t count on it. As Casperstar said, this is internal testing material, not release candidate.

Oh, and this mystery version of webOS also has solved the app limit issue that plagues current Pre and Pixi owners.

As always, with something like this you should set aside a grain or two of salt. Palm obviously won’t confirm or deny this sort of stuff and we never see the game opened or closed. It would be easy enough to fake this with a combination of videos, patches, practice, a bit of Photoshop magic, patience, and a twisted sense of humor. Still… our fingers are most definitely crossed. We want to believe.

UPDATE: The MX Web has taken a close look at the App Catalog list image and believes this to be a hoax given a number of discrepancies between it and the App Catalog currently on devices. We’re not sure it’s enough to debunk this, given the other evidence that doesn’t quite match up but could easily be attributed to internal testing, but we as always remain skeptical.

Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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Over at Pre 101 the recently interviewed a familiar character on the webOS scene: Palm’s Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach. We got a bit of history on Von Rospach (prior to working with Palm he had worked with Sun Microsystems, Apple, Strongmail, and Laszlo Systems) and an explanation as to why his Tweets are almost always about birds.

But we know what you all find to be the interesting stuff: what he does at Palm. Chuq described his job as managing the developer portal and forums, communicating information from Palm to the developer community, and working with developers and media to address problems. Essentially, he serves as the nexus of Palm’s developer community, linking together Palm, the developers, and the media.

But what of the things that are big for developers? You know, the SDK, submission process, and App Catalog. Chuq says that Palm has heard our complaints. While it may not be evident from the outside, Chuq says that the application submission process has made leaps and bounds behind the scenes. The SDK’s documentation is also being expanded and enhanced in response to complaints from developers. Palm has also taken the notable step of embracing the external developer community unlike one of one of the other smartphone makers out there. The homebrew community at PreCentral is a crystal clear example of this embrace, especially when you consider how many of our developers have recently ‘graduated’ up to the App Catalog.

There’s much more at Pre 101, so check it out!

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I’ve been a loyal Palm user for many years. Going back to the old Palm M105 I’ve been a Palm diehard, up through the Tungsten T, Tungsten T3 (best PDA ever), a Treo 650, Treo 755p, and now the Palm Pre. Don’t get me wrong, I really do like the Palm Pre and believe that it is the best smartphone on the market and webOS certainly has more potential than any other platform, but years of observation have left me somewhat jaded on the future of Palm.

This time one year ago I was lost as to what my next phone was going to be. My Sprint contract was close to being up for renewal and while I was still a fan of the old Palm OS, it simply couldn’t compare to the offerings from Apple and Google. Problem is, Android a year ago was still pretty darned rough around the edges and even then I didn’t like the idea of being locked in the Apple iPhone ecosystem. And Sprint, oh poor lowly Sprint, they didn’t have a single new phone that I found really appealing. My Treo was by no means in bad shape – the 755p was a tank, after all – but I’m a self-professed technology whore and I had a bad hankering for the latest.

Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer before Palm revealed webOS and the Pre. I though I was saved, and through the next six months that it took for Palm and Sprint to finally ship the phone I read everything I could about it, jumped back into discussion of the phone and Palm, and eventually came to be a writer and editor for PreCentral. The Pre finally landed in my hands on launch day and I couldn’t have been happier.

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In tandem with the release of webOS 1.3.1 this morning, Palm has announed on its Developer Network Blog an updated Mojo SDK framework, version 1.3.1.  Some of the highlights from the update include Enhanced Pixi support in the emulator, an API to keep the screen from auto-dimming, auto-generation of app Help / Support scene, and developers familiar with the SDK documentation should appreciate this: numerous framework documentation enhancements. You can see the full release notes for Mojo SDK 1.3.1 here, and you can download the SDK here.

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Developers, if you’ve downloaded Palm’s Mojo SDK and haven’t been accepted into the Early Access Program yet, you should check your email: it’s your last chance to try to get in early and get in cheap into the App Catalog. Palm has announced in an email sent out to folks who downloaded the Mojo SDK that they’re looking to bring in a final batch of developers to help with final scalability testing before they open up to the general public next month. 

The perks of being in the Early Access Program?  Palm is waiving the $99 annual and $50 per application fees they’ll be charging when the program goes public, you’ll be assigned an account manager to expedite feedback for any technical program or issues, get marketing incentives, and have the opportunity to provide feedback to help shape the program.

Hit the break for the full email.

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