Palm's App Catalog Finally Includes Paid Software

[Ed Hardy]

Palm's on-device software store has passed an important milestone -- the first for-pay apps have been listed. This is expected to lead to a significantly larger amount of webOS software available for users of the Palm Pre.

Until now, this store only allowed free software, limiting professional developers' interest in using it.

Over a dozen for-pay apps were added today. These are expected to be followed by more, but not an immediate huge rush. Palm is ramping up its system for approving software to be listed on its App Catalog, and the first titles to be listed are part of a beta program. Palm says the e-commerce program will be open to all developers later this year.

More about the App Catalog
When the webOS debuted on the Palm Pre this summer, it included a beta of an on-device software store. This lets users find and install apps directly onto their smartphone, with no PC required. But, as mentioned earlier, the first version only offered free apps.

When webOS 1.2 was released last week, it included support for a new version of the App Catalog, one that supports paid software. It lets users store their credit card info on their smartphone, and use it to purchase items from Palm's store.

Source: Engadget

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[harpgliss]

Hi,

Palm's App Catalog Finally Includes Paid Software

Great for Pre users.

Air Hockey?

It is a start though and that is the important part.

David

[JeffGr]

There actually does seem to be a bit of a mini rush today. They have been steadily adding apps to the catalog over the last couple hours and are up to 13 paid ones now. They have added 9 more free apps so far this afternoon as well.

-Jeff

[harpgliss]

Hi,

Been reading the thread over at Precentral on this and with all the complaining about price, no demo, and all the other complaining about the commercial stuff hitting the public, WOW.

Palm and the developers are in a no win situation from the posts over there, and it is the first day of business.

Going to be interesting to follow this.

David

[J.R.]

Too bad they pulled some of the apps since a bug in the marketplace software allowed users to acquire any app available, free or pay, without paying anything.

[tmedvick]

They corrected the payment system last night. It seems the problem was not with all pay apps, but Homebrew apps that had been elevated to the catalog. If you attempted to buy these, the system saw this as a free upgrade and did not charge you.

[J.R.]

Sort of. You could create a dummy app with the same name as a paid app, and score an "update" the same way.