Where are all the Pre apps?
I hear many people who are knowledgeable about smartphones and the smartphone market say that success of a platform is determined by the applications that are available. For instance, the iPhone is dominant at this point largely because of the app store.
Why didn't Palm release its SDK in advance of the Pre release to ensure there were numerous applications available at launch and many more in the pipeline? And then seek out as many developers as possible building on relationships it had with Palm OS developers (Classic is not a substitute for native applications on the WebOS). I owned the Pre for about five days and then returned it because it simply didn't offer enough in terms of applications. Moreover, it doesn't sound like Palm is even close to having another wave of applications released.
The iPhone App Store was admittedly not built in a day, launching with "only" less than 500 apps. However, from launch forward there was a steady flow of applications hitting the store daily. Could it be that developers have chosen not develop for WebOS at this point because of its limited availabilty and the lucrative opportunities on other mobile platforms?
Palm did a great job with WebOS and decent job on the Pre hardware. However, it was misstep to allow the Pre to launch with only a handful of applications available and few more in sight.
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