14 DAY TRIAL // Starting with Monday, October 5, 2009, the owners of a Palm Pre mobile phone have the opportunity to purchase applications from the Palm App Catalog. Announced a few days ago, and rumored for the past few weeks, the new functionality has been finally made available, though with some minor problems at the beginning, it seems.
According to the news on the Internet, Palm has pulled the paid apps shortly after the launch, due to the fact that a critical security bug has been discovered by the guys over at webos-internals. However, the issue has been resolved in the meantime, and now applications can be purchased safely from the storefront. One thing that should be noted here is that the bug had nothing to do with the credit card information users were required to provide, at least this is what PreCentral notes.
At the same time, we should note that the development of paid apps for Palm's webOS platform does not require for developers to submit their software solutions to the App Catalog. Palm asks devs to pay a $50 entrance fee for the submission of an application to the portal, yet those who would like to skip the process will receive a URL for open distribution of their application over the web.
Moreover, it seems that the company also plans on dropping the $99 yearly fee for developers that come up with open-source apps, yet there are no details on whether these apps will be submitted to the App Catalog as well. One thing that is certain though is that the apps that will not make it to the software portal will not be reviewed by Palm, which might also suggest that the company won't have control over the content built for its webOS platform.
Since the first paid applications are already in the App Catalog, it remains to be seen what developers will choose when it comes to the distribution of their software solutions. Time will tell whether Palm's approach will make things get out of control, or whether users will choose to acquire only apps from the storefront, considering that Palm vouches for the solutions within the App Catalog.