We wanted to end today's develop-o-rama on a high note - so here it is: next weekend we're going to launch the PreCentral Featured Apps program! As a webOS user, it's increasingly hard to find the good apps. As a developer, it's increasingly hard to get your app noticed. We're hoping we can help with both of those problems.

It's simple, really: we'll be spotlighting apps on the sidebar and in our main blog feed on a much more regular basis. You'll see screenshots of our favorite apps and apps from developers who care about our readers in our webOS App Gallery.

If you're a webOS user - stay tuned, we're launching in a week or so. If you're a webOS developer - read on to learn how to enroll in the PreCentral Featured Apps program. Oh, one other thing - we don't want your money, we just want to help promote your apps. The program, it's free.

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Feeling like you’re spending too much time on PreCentral? We assure you that you’re not. But if you feel like you should be spending more time elsewhere on the internet, we thought you’d be glad to know that PreCentral is elsewhere on the internet as well. Be it on the old standby Twitter or our new Facebook fan page (or in the really old standby of RSS), PreCentral is everywhere that you want to be. Check it all out after the break...

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One of the complaints we’ve heard often from Pre and Pixi owners is that the only way to browse the App Catalog is on their devices. Today we’re pleased to announce that those complaints can be set to the side, as we at PreCentral have partnered with the good folks at Palm to bring you the PreCentral webOS App Gallery.

Palm has been gracious enough to provide us with a free and open feed to the App Catalog, and that just makes them pretty much awesome. We’ve taken that feed and converted it into something that you can easily browse on your desktop machine, as well as in the webOS web browser. Right now you can check out the latest updates, search for apps, browse the various categories, and check out screenshots. This is in beta from both ourselves and Palm, so don’t be surprised to see more exciting additions in the days and weeks ahead (once we recover from the excitement that is CES). [Note from Dieter: Very beta, we're working on improvements, thanks to everybody who has sent in suggestions!]

Want to check it out? Of course you do. Just point your browser to http://www.precentral.net/app-gallery

The competition for “most open” software platform will always be a fierce one. It all depends on what your definition of “open” is. Do that mean open and easy development, like webOS, or do you mean completely open source, like Android? Our friend Casey Chan over at sister site Android Central last week got his robot paws on webOS in the form of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi and was tasked with giving the world his impressions of the platform from the Android point of view.

Jumping headfirst into any platform is a new experience, so thankfully we’ve got the PreCentral forums to help out both novices and experts alike. You all in the community stepped up to the plate to give Casey a crash course in webOS 101.

So what did Casey think about webOS? In truth, there’s a lot on paper that seems very similar about the two operating systems. They both support full multitasking, they both have unobtrusive notifications, the both have application stores, and they both work on capacitive multitouch screens (well, Android is a sometimes in that category). But the similarities end there, and Android does have a year’s start on the relatively fresh webOS. We don’t want to give away all of Casey’s thoughts and observations about the first efforts of Palm’s rebirth, so we’ll just give you a link to Android Central where you can check them out for yourself.

Once you’re done with that, we’re sure you’ll be on a webOS high, so we want to keep it going by giving you a webOS phone. It’s a giveaway! All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a post in a Smartphone Round Robin thread on the PreCentral forums and once this all wraps up we’ll pick a winner. As always, the rules for these contests are suggested reading. Casey has already passed off the Pre and Pixi to Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com - Kevin’s going to need the ease of webOS after a week with Windows Mobile, while our own Dieter Bohn is about to get some face time with BlackBerry.

Of all the smartphone platforms in play for this year’s Smartphone Round Robin, webOS is clearly the very newest. Outside of our own Dieter Bohn, none of the other Smartphone Experts network sites editors participating in the Round Robin had had significant face time with webOS, and that includes WMExperts editor Phil Nickinson. So when Phil got a Palm Pre and a Palm Pixi shoved into each hand, we left him on the side of the road asking, “Whaaaa?”

Thankfully, the trusty and knowledgeable members of the PreCentral community stepped up and gave Phil the help he needed so that he could knock out a comparative review of webOS in a week’s time. It helps that the webOS user interface is incredibly easy to learn and navigate.

Phil came away with plenty of observations about webOS, especially with how Palm’s rebirth comes as Windows Mobile seems to be losing its footing. What all did Phil think about webOS, the Pre, and the Pixi? Well, we don’t want to ruin the surprise for you, so you should head on over the WMExperts to see what he has to say about webOS cards, apps, and hardware.

Of course, if you want a Pre or Pixi for yourself (or a loved one), we’re here to help you out. All you have to do is leave a post in a Smartphone Round Robin thread in the PreCentral forums and you’ll be automatically entered to win a Pre or a Pixi. Cool, eh? Of course, there are some rules, so read up before posting down. And stay tuned in the next week as Casey Chan of Android Central takes on webOS (he just tackled Windows Mobile) and Dieter gets hands-on time with Nokia’s S60 and Maemo. Hopefully he can wash that iPhone smell off his hands first.

More than 150 apps are available from the PreCentral Classic App Store, several of them free. There are apps for the business and finance crowds, dozens of games, reference apps, and even apps for personal healthcare. Check it out at http://software.precentral.net 

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With nearly 250 total apps - more than a dozen of which have graduated to Palm’s App Catalog - the PreCentral Homebrew App Gallery has logged more than two million downloads since August 19th. It was just September 4th that we hit one million downloads, so we’ve been running along at a clip of over 43,000 downloads a day over the past three weeks. In reality, we’re well over two million downloads by now, as the Homebrew Gallery actually opened for business on August 5th, but we didn’t manage to start keeping track until two weeks later when we saw just how many homebrew apps you were all sucking down through the pipes.

So to our developers and users, congratulations! Also, big thanks to Palm - we’re more than pleased to see homebrew developers graduating to the official App Catalog and honored to say that we were a part of it all.

So here’s to the next million downloads and the future of webOS apps! If you’re not sure how to install homebrew apps on your Pre, check out our step-by-step installation guide. And if you’re a developer who is interested in getting your app into the PreCentral Homebrew App Gallery, drop us a note and we’ll hook you up.

Well how about some SHOUTcast? With more than 20,000 stations and over 600,000 daily listeners, SHOUTcast Radio is the preeminent internet radio server, and it doesn’t just serve up live audio from the big boys - folks like you and me can get in on the action and do your own broadcasting. And now, you can listen to it all from your Pre.

Check out five homebrew music streaming apps after the break!

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Our very own Homebrew Forums have always been the place to be to find homebrew apps for the Palm Pre.  It's a great place for troubleshooting, asking questions, and discussion.  Browsing.... Not so great.

So we've been coding our little heads off and although there's a rough edge here and there, we're happy to present...

The PreCentral.net Homebrew Apps Gallery

You can sort through apps, rate them, filter or click on tags (see them in the sidebar of the main gallery page), and yes, download the apps.

If you're new to homebrew apps, here's the deal.  They are all essentially Beta apps presented for testing and edification.  Some are free and will be forever, the rest are free but just during the Beta period. Many of them will hopefully make their way into the official App Catalog (at which time, we'll pull them from our gallery, obviously).

If you've never installed homebrew apps, it's getting easier by the day.  For your first install, you just use WebOS Quick Install.  Then you'll want to use it to install fileCoaster.  With fileCoaster, you can paste any link to a Pre app and it will download and install it.  Heck, we've made a mobile version of the Homebrew App Gallery to make it even easier.

Just remember there's plenty of 'Beta' to go around here, so pardon us (and then tell us) if you kick a tire and it goes flat.  Keep on heading into our homebrew forums to talk to the developers, but now there's a nice way to gaze upon Homebrew Apps. Even if you're not part of the 65% of our readers who have tried Homebrew, the Gallery gives you a hint of what may be coming to the official App Catalog.

Developers, want to add your app to the gallery?  Just ask!

Know your PHP, MYSQL, CMS, and CSS?  Then we want to know you.  Smartphone Experts is looking for a developer for some work across all of our sites.  We were going to say something about wanting you to be a 'self-starter' with 'a gung-ho attitude' and all that, but our banal job posting thesaurus has gone missing.

Instead, we'll just point out that you can more details in this forum post and that we hope to hear from you in the very near future.