Facebook For webOS Cops A Drubbing

I saw this coming!

There is a native compiler that they are not releasing to the general developer community cause:

1) It is buggy as all hell.

2) Command line only with a third party IDE.

3) They are desperate to take in money from big name clients to enhance revenue (dumping on third party developers again.)

or -- my favorite

4) IP or sheer lack of desire to pay royalties to ARM or other ARM-related businesses.

Facebook has available an API for retrieving, etc, information from Facebook.

That is, a "Facebook app" should be using that API to access the Facebook information, not simply accessing Facebook web pages and parsing the HTML/Javascript source.

I do think that the development environment is limited, but I don't think that's the reason for the lack of developers and applications. There are no apps because there is no money to be made. There is no money to be made because there are no users. And there are no users partially because there are no apps. It's a chicken and the egg situation, and the solution is to either be first to market or have the best integration. Palm has neither.

> There are no apps because there is no money to be made.

That's one part of the problem but doesn't explain the lack of decent freeware.
IMHO. The problem is that all the applications must be written from scratch and no preexisting code can be reused. The ease of programming is just marketing speak which is barely interesting. What most programmers really wish is not having to rewrite code for no particular reason.
And yes the sdk is very limited: the system api is primitive and the javascript language has its own problems too (lack of multitasking, to name one).

If palm really wants to get developers for their platform, I think they need to release a native SDK in C/C++ or java (as a second choice).
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Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

well at least you guys can use the new facebook app. With my GSM Pre I'm still stuck in the middle ages now being three software version behind the US instead of just two!

But I think it is true, what Mr. Rubinstein said (at least it would be ok with me), Palm doesn't need 100 000 apps. In fact, everytime I search for something on the iPhone app store I find it quite disturbing to go through hundreds of apps till I find what I need. What Palm really needs is quality, not quantity, true! BUT up till now they have neither. It's not like there are 300 high quality apps in the store. In fact, most of it is crap. What about instant messaging (especially MSN, ICQ, Skype)? A more feature-rich and stable Google Maps app? At least basic video recording? Support for other social networking sites? Maybe a few of the European portals?

For somebody who kept shouting out loud how awesome synergy is going to be and what a great concept combined messaging, etc. is, Palm is taking it way too slow at the moment. Palm has designed a product with an imho awesome form factor (the iPhone feels nothing but huge and clumsy in your hands once you get used to the Pre) and some innovative software concept with great potential but now is the time to fully exploit this. Not next year, not with the next hardware iteration, etc.... what about some results now. What about a "big bang" software update reminding Pre-owners why they bought that thing? Or is it gonna be just bug fixes for the months to come (while not even addressing the biggest bug: UI speed / lag)?!

And as a last note: The Mojo SDK is probably the worst thing I've ever worked with. Javascript and the current tools included in the SDK has nothing to do with quick and easy development. Sure, it's not all that bad for those simple apps currently flooding the store, like crossword puzzles, database and lookup applications basically just downloading a chunk of information to be displayed on the device. But anything more complex, let alone GPU-intensive applications or those that need certain hardware access... don't even think about trying it! Hell, what's wrong with C++, Java or the .Net framework? It had to be Javascript and HTML combined with a really poor and unfinished SDK?

I realise that Apple didn't do all those thing over night either and I also see that the Pre doesn't necessarily have to become another iPhone immitation. But multi-touch and a good web-browser is not all the iPhone has to offer. There's more to copy, Palm!

Were Apple to offer a smaller form-factor iPhone right now, preferably with a hardware keyboard, I wouldn't even hesitate for a moment and switch my Pre for it. I'm still willing to give Palm some time but at some point there gonna have to show that there up to more than just bug fixes!

if u want better facebook integration, get an iPhone.

iphone native apps multitask and the 3gs is fast - the pre walks and chews gum veeerrryyyy sssllloooowwwllllyyyyyy.

The iPhone multi-tasks, but third party apps on the iPhone aren't allowed to access the capability. The mp3 player, for example, plays while other apps are running. And the alarms in the calendar go off even if the calendar is off.

As for instant messaging, the push notification thing Apple came up with is quite good. It's as good as having the app open without the memory and battery drain.

Where the lack of multi-tasking is annoying is with maps and pandora and those third party apps that would be very useful to keep open.

The best part about m.facebook.com and the nicer looking (but less functional x.facebook.com) is that both screen out posts made from the iPhone client. Seriously, compare the mobile sites with the full website on your PC-- those marked "via facebook for iPhone" do not show up.

It's like an automatic idiot filter. :)