Palm To Fight Race to the $.99 Bottom in the App Catalog
Speaking at a PreDevCamp session, Palm’s Developer Community Manager Chuq van Rospach eased one fear expressed at many-a-preDevCamp regarding the iPhone App Store’s glut of 99¢ apps. Van Rospach was quoted at TamsPalm as saying:
“We’re also trying to build some things into the catalog … and different ways to get your app into the catalog and get it noticed. … how can we help people with good apps get that kind of notice and marketing … [we want to make sure that] the really good apps get that notice, not the cheap apps, and fighting that whole race to the bottom is one of those things that we want to see if we can do a little differently.”
More thoughts on this excellent news after the break!
iPhone developer revolt brewing, what can Palm learn?
Charles Wolf, of Needham & Co., recently described the iPhone App Store as a “wasteland of mediocre applications” and that it was taking “its place alongside YouTube, where poor taste is the defining metric.” And now, following Apple’s killing of various Google Voice applications for ‘duplicating features’ of the iPhone (possibly at AT&T’s bidding), developers are beginning to question the logic of developing applications for the iPhone platform. Even Michael Arrington, noted lover of all things Apple, and editor of TechCrunch, is dumping his iPhone (and would have picked up a Pre if there was a webOS Google Voice app, somebody tell that guy about Homebrew!).
Mr. Rubinstein, I sincerely hope you’re watching what’s going on here as Palm moves towards finalizing its own App Catalog. While Apple may have led the way into a place we didn’t know we needed to go (the land of the application store), they’ve since gotten lost and wandered into an ever-darkening corner. Palm, we’ve got some helpful pointers, some of which you're doing, some we want to make sure you do.