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Ever since MotionApps' webOS Classic App was released, longtime Palm users have been enjoying Palm OS apps on their new Pre (most recently with v.1.1, which adds sound support and more). MotionApps have taken the next step in making emulation an enjoyable experience, releasing Classic Well, a community-driven website that has a growing list of compatible Palm OS apps. Tested a new Palm OS app that's not on the list? Then add it. More searchability is planned for Classic Well in the future.

MotionApps also started a list of Classic Certified apps, which are apps guaranteed to work with the emulator. So far, certified apps include popular apps such as Agendus, HanDBase, Metro, and 5MCC, a medical app. between the thousands of Palm OS apps and a growing library of homebrew apps, looks like users will have something to keep busy with until the Mojo SDK hits later this summer.

PCMag

Palm investors have had reason to be confident lately, as the company reported Q4 results with a smaller net loss than expected, on top of a gross margin of 23.1 percent, reports BusinessWeek. Wall Street saw shares of the smartphone maker rise to the highest levels since October 2007, before the Pre was announced; closing at $16.22 today, up $2.20 (15.69%). The quarter ended May 29, and included early shipments of the Pre, estimated to be up to 150,000 units sold and 351,000 shipped.

In the Palm quarterly conference call, CEO Jon Rubinstein stated that he believes Palm has "pioneered the mobile platform for the next 10 years and beyond". But when asked when the elusive Mojo SDK would be released to developers, he stated that they are:

“…eager to widen the SDK access, but will do so in a controlled and methodical fashion."

This is along the lines of what Palm Community Developer Manager Chuq Von Rospach posted earlier; that the Mojo SDK Early Access Program would be expanded to thousands of developers "as quickly as resources allow". Thankfully, it seems Palm is keeping to plan - The first batch of invites were sent out yesterday according to the PDN Blog, effectively doubling the program since the day before. And the growth will continue. Von Rospach writes:

This is just the first set of new members — our plan is to double the size of the program again in the next week, and then continue the growth as fast as we can until everyone who wants the SDK has access to it.  If you didn’t get an invite today, please be patient — we’re working on it and will continue to work to get as many of you into the program as fast as we can.

Preliminary numbers for Palm Pre sales have come in, as well as download estimates for the new webOS App Catalog. In spite of backordered stock at many Best Buy locations, an estimated 150,000 units have already been sold, reports RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky. We could also see as many as 550,000 units ship by the end of the quarter.

In addition, demand is rising for Palm handhelds, and although still trailing far behind Apple's iPhone, in a recent poll about 8% of consumers plan to purchase a Palm smartphone within the next 90 days. This is up from just 1% in late 2008, before the Pre was announced, reports CNN.

Despite the Palm Mojo SDK being pushed to the end of summer and only 30 apps currently available, the App Catalog has also been progressing, reaching the million mark in downloads. Also, easily-installed homebrew apps are beginning to surface, which should allow a wide range of users to add apps to their device before the App Catalog picks up steam. More after the break.

Pre users familiar with the webOS browser may be finding a need for additional functionality when it comes to downloading images, music and other content from the web. After all, having such an option only makes sense in making the best use of your data plan over Sprint's 3G network. A new tweak in a growing list of webOS hacks from PreDevWiki (made possible by the webOS root) adds a download widget to the bottom of web pages, as well as a "downloads" feature that creates its own scene for completed downloads in the browser.

It will take a bit of work to get it up and running, but Palm apparently left much of the code in place for downloading anyway, so only one line of "code" really needs to be fixed, while others are considered resources. Of note is that while the swipe-to-delete will remove the widget from the screen, the downloads still persist until finished. Also, downloading unknown types (such as .zip or .exe) results in an endless loop of new browsers, so should be avoided for now. Hit up the link below for the details:

PreDevWiki

For those who hoped to take advantage of Best Buy's $100 instant rebate on the Palm Pre, only to find store shelves cleaned out due to low stock, now is your chance to get back in line. Precentral reports that in exchange for purchasing a $50 gift card, you too can get into the preorder queue. This is similar to previous models used for iPhone waitlists. The gift card can then be used for the Pre, a touchstone, or anything else you want. From the Best Buy forums:

I guess we at Best Buy are having such a hard time with getting more Pre's in stock, that they've decided to do pre-orders for another wave of inventory that is supposed to be in by July 8. Stores will take pre-orders up until June 30, and if they get inventory in before that, they are to call the customers when inventory comes in, according to who's first on the pre-order list.

Still not a bad deal, a gift card sure sounds a lot better than having to fill out a form, cut up your Pre box, then wait 10-12 weeks for a mail-in rebate to (hopefully) arrive. Some stores still have stock, so it's best to call ahead and check. Just make sure you're ready to pick up a plan as well, as the Big Blue is still selling the phone for a whopping $849 off-contract.

It's been a few weeks since Chapter 8 of Palm webOS Rough Cuts was released, and now Chapter 10, Background Applications, is out to read up on before the Mojo SDK hits by summer's end. And no, they didn't skip a chapter, rather added a new one (Chapter 7, "Advanced Styles") Below is the summary of what to expect from the latest chapter:

"Whether you're interested in building an advanced application or just want to add notifications to a basic application, this chapter covered some essential topics. There was a broad review of advanced multi-stage applications with an introduction to Notifications and Dashboards. You learned that advanced applications are based on an Application assistant, which can handle external launch requests and potentially run in the background. You were also shown how to customize your application's behavior when minimized, meaning switched out of the foreground view, and how to use the internal application notification chain to coordinate actions between assistants or share events and data.

With the techniques learned in this chapter you should be able to move your application to the background, build a dashboard-only application or use secondary card stages to support separate activities."

Developers have begun releasing their homebrew apps to the world; and with the workaround that was found to install them through e-mail without rooting your Pre, now just about anyone can beef up their device with new programs and more.

One of the first apps is a simple Tip Calculator created by Jamie Zawinski, with functionality to help you to tip appropriately, split the bill between multiple people, and of course accurately account for taxes. The likes of this may be familiar to iPhone app enthusiasts. Another recent app comes from Pimp My Pre, which provides an improved ringtone and notification sound manager. There are still a few bugs to work out in the latter program, but so far the apps are looking promising (and free to boot).

However, the install loophole could make it too easy for inexperienced users to install unfamiliar programs, and could be a security risk for malware to make its way onto devices of unsuspecting users. Could Palm patch it up with a future update? This would shut out many casual users from installing homebrew apps while they wait for the App Catalog to pick up after the SDK is released later this year. Even if the e-mail install method is disabled, progressive developers will likely find alternate ways of loading their apps onto the Pre.

via Precentral

In a recent investor relations earnings presentation, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen stated that he expects a beta version of the Flash 10 player to be released to developers in early October of this year. This release will coincide with the Adobe Max conference in LA running between 10/5 and 10/7. Narayen also stated that several partners have already recieved copies of the Flash 10 player for mobile devices and noted specifically that Palm and WebOS are included in that list.

There is a Pre-Conference tutorial on mobile development on Sunday 10/4 before the conference. Perhaps they will make the announcement and release the beta there. It is scheduled to be a conference on Flash Lite - will they change that? We shall see.