[hparsons]

You're barking up the wrong tree. I think you are misinterpreting the meaning of "private API". None of this has the slightest bit to do with security. There is little, if any, danger of a developer publishing a malicious app through the official catalog. Palm already allows some devs access to the private APIs. I am sure they scrutinize these apps particularly well as a result and would reject anything that was reading users' private data and transmitting it.

On the other hand, with Homebrew apps, you never know what you're getting. The community can police apps to a degree, but there is no guarantee you're not getting something malicious.

I disagree. The person to whom I was responding made a comment implying that since you could get to the API, it somehow wasn't "private".

That's not the case.

[hparsons]

thank you.
your doing great with 7 posts in a row keep it up.

Glad you liked them. My posts were 7 in a row because I didn't keep up during the day. Some days work just gets in the way...
I will say it's pretty big of you to take your lumps though. You're a good sport!

[Kasracer]

Java and C++ in particular feel like writing code with handcuffs on.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I love typed languages so I can force the exact information and data I want but I also understand why some like untyped languages.

I try to be a very exacting person hence why I like typed languages .

As to readability, if you follow the guidelines in Crockfords style guide for Javascript, use JSBeautifier and JSLint religiously, and don't try to be all fancy and weird, javascript is utterly readable.

I will take a look at those two items. Thanks!

[davis.rob]

But seriously, by selling the app through the catalog, I would be contractually bound to maintain compatibility. If I didn't, Palm could remotely remove the app, refund users and charge me back every penny they paid me. That is not the kind of situation I'd like to be in.

Is that true for all apps, or are you just speculating about a compromise for this one? Not questioning your honesty or integrity at all, but I'm just curious as to what sort of commitment they expect in general. How long?

[KallDrexx#WN]

But seriously, by selling the app through the catalog, I would be contractually bound to maintain compatibility. If I didn't, Palm could remotely remove the app, refund users and charge me back every penny they paid me. That is not the kind of situation I'd like to be in. .

Don't be stupid, that contract would not be enforceable. Palm, apple, and even google can't force anyone to update their application to work again because of something THEY changed.

Furthermore, no company would agree to take the money back from you if the app broke and you refused to update the application because they have no garrantee that you will have a means to pay Palm back (or even the ability to track you down easily). Furthermore, Palm will take a lot of flak for having to give refunds and doing something that dismantles an approved application.

Stop whining and just realize Palm has no way to feasibly allow a lone-no reputation developer to use officially use undocumented APIs

[Blubble]

Is that true for all apps, or are you just speculating about a compromise for this one? Not questioning your honesty or integrity at all, but I'm just curious as to what sort of commitment they expect in general. How long?

While I won't divulge the specific wording, I've seen the contract for the app catalog and it has clauses that require the developer to maintain the app.

[jaynovel]

well this sucks, ah well

[Blubble]

Don't be stupid, that contract would not be enforceable. Palm, apple, and even google can't force anyone to update their application to work again because of something THEY changed.

Furthermore, no company would agree to take the money back from you if the app broke and you refused to update the application because they have no garrantee that you will have a means to pay Palm back (or even the ability to track you down easily). Furthermore, Palm will take a lot of flak for having to give refunds and doing something that dismantles an approved application.

Didn't Apple pull that stunt with the developers of some apps that have been pulled of the App Store?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/25...pt-developers/

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/03...0-app-refunds/

Besides, I offered to make it a free trial until the API is finalized, so it's kind of a moot point.

Stop whining and just realize Palm has no way to feasibly allow a lone-no reputation developer to use officially use undocumented APIs

They actually did just that for one of the apps that was released today. I won't mention which one specifically so as to not cause problems for the "lone no-reputation" developer involved. You might want to have a clue what you're talking about before spouting bull****.

BTW, I may not be known for Palm apps, but my software clients for other projects include many of the biggest names in the music industry. I also happen to do a lot of programming work for one of Sprint's largest competitors and many other Fortune 100 corporations. I am not some fly by night chump writing his first app. I submitted all that information to Palm when I applied for the Early Access Program.

[shaffaaf27]

<3 bubbles

[cashen]

I'm very upset with palm with this move.

The current music player, if you can call it that, sucks.

They should actually just hire you.

What email is everyone using to email palm about this crap?

[ADGrant]

Why could they not sell their application? Has Kinoma ever been an a mfg sponsored app store?

They can sell it from their website just fine.

And how would the average WebOS user install the app. Has web installation been restored?

[zyxwv88]

Blubble,

Although I completely understand your disappointment, I have to say that I agree with Palm on this one. There are a lot of stupid people in the world, and I think I have to deal with most of them in my job. Allowing an app that you know will break is just begging for troubles, especially if it is popular and all the stupid people can't figure out why it broke. Especially if it somehow managed to break in a destructive way (yes, unlikely, but possible). No one wants to listen to the stupid people trying to figure out how to download the updates or not realizing that the little symbol on the catalog means there is an update.

That being said, I also think that the homebrew channel is a good way to go in the mean time. You have a LOT of supporters here who are just itching to get their grubby little hands on your music player (myself included). It gives you more time to make your app absolutely perfect by the time it hits the official channels and blow everyone else away. Not to mention that if you have a donate link, you will have people donating. If you make a donate link, I'll be one of the first, even if it means I have to buy it a second time when it hits the official channel. I hate the current music player that much. You can still make a little cash while it's in homebrew as well.

One last thing, Blubble, please don't get discouraged. I know a lot of us are very excited about NaNplayer and are anxious to see what you'll write next (and even more excited for you to finish this). Please don't give up on Palm. If you are frustrated about NaNplayer though, you could go with a non-media option next so you don't run into that issue again.

I have to say that I found Chuq's post very enlightening. There are a lot of things that his post implies that I find very interesting. One is that not only does palm apparently know quite a bit about the homebrew channel and they seem to follow it some, they also seem to approve of it. The fact that it was suggested as an outlet for the app until the new APIs implies that they like the homebrew. This is a totally different take from Apple, who despise the jailbreak app and blame it on most of the iPhone woes. The logical conclusion from that would be that Palm will never intentionally break the homebrew (barring security issues like the email install).

I was also amazed that there was official comment about why it was rejected (or delayed, from their viewpoint). Apple has never commented on rejected apps, so Palm's statement is very classy.

[ADGrant]

and I like my languages untyped thank-you-very-much. Javascript is VERY powerful, rich and deep. Java and C++ in particular feel like writing code with handcuffs on.

...

As to readability, if you follow the guidelines in Crockfords style guide for Javascript, use JSBeautifier and JSLint religiously, and don't try to be all fancy and weird, javascript is utterly readable.

The fact that you need to run javascript through a beautifier to make it readable suggests to me that the language leads to code that is hard to read. I have never had to use a beautifier with either Java or C++, or study a style guide (a few naming conventions can be useful though).

Java supports a fairly loosely typed style of coding when needed as does C++. I don't see where you are getting the handcuffs feeling from. Most of the code in WebOS was written in C which is mostly a subset of C++ (and is a subset of Objective-C). I will concede that C++ is much harder to use than Java though and harder to read.

[sYnOnYx#WN]

I think they should make it a go to let blubble release it as a "trial"

It would definetly be a way for palm to gauge the support for it.

Im excited for NaNplayer. But to be honest, Im thinking Palm is going to try and make their player better.


Im happy to see palm atleast responded instead of leaving us in the dark like apple has to their Devs. I dont think they liked all the heat that started brewing. On the other hand, Palm is still accepting apps into the catalog from homebrew.

Dont give up just yet Blubble. If anything, you have the community's will to donate/pay for your app.

[hparsons]

And how would the average WebOS user install the app. Has web installation been restored?

The Quick Install is as easy to set up and use as the old Palm Desktop application was.

[ADGrant]

The Quick Install is as easy to set up and use as the old Palm Desktop application was.

Not really. The Palm hotsync software (I never installed Palm Desktop) didn't require the user to put their phone in developer mode. It also came on a CD with the phone.

[DavidRR]

I haven't read all of the thread, but Palms response makes perfect sense. As a developer who writes frameworks, there are times you release stuff before it is all done, because you want people to start working with it as soon as possible. When you do that, you release the documentation for the stuff that you have finalized (i.e. the SDK). There are other API's that are in the code you release that any developer with half a brain can figure out.

Some of these are only going to need a few tweaks to finalize, so big Fing deal if someone starts using them, they can get back up in a matter of hours without major re-work (if they maintained decent development practices), but there are parts that you wrote to just get basic functionality working, that will need a complete re-write for anything using them.

I'm sure some of the undocumented API's are probably at the 90% stage, but from what Palm said, the Music API was thrown together to get a player on the device. It was never intended to be anywhere near the final concept, but they had to get that part in place to get a lot of the core functionality working. (Without looking at any of the code, I would assume they use the music API to get the ring tones, alert sounds and everything else that makes noise on the machine. They have higher level components that are used for the developers to get that information, but the API that Bubbles used, is the one they are planning on re-writing which will require some of their core pieces to be re-written, but those parts will maintain the public API for the higher level calls).

[gizmo21]

I think a release in the homebrew catalog would be great start for your app (even not every Pre user will find it there). But if there are some reviews of the app on the right news sites it will get certain notice and a donation button will reward you some bucks as motivation for further development too. Don't quit developing, as you can see on todays app catalog releases homebrew developers are supported by Palm. And even if the answers by now given by Palm are a bit frustating for you, the Pre users would love to have a "beta"-NaNPlayer with a "potential-to be-broken-in-future-API-call".

[Blubble]

I have decided that I will release a beta trial version of NaNplayer in the homebrew gallery once we are done with beta testing and a bit more development. That should be within the next 30 days.

Then, I will continue to add some of the advanced features like dynamic playlists, user editable skins and other cool things that are in concept stage. That way, when Palm finally gets their **** in gear, the full "pro" app will be available for sale through the app store. Most users will have to wait for the app, but when it finally comes out, it will be a lot more mature app. It's not the best solution, but due to Palm's unwillingness to work something out, it is the best we can do.

[Blubble]

@DavidRR,

You're right. All the code that uses the mediaDB service is encapsulated in a single class. The only thing it really does is call a query that returns a list of songs. It would literally take a few hours to update that class whenever Palm changes their service interface. None of the rest of the app would have to be changed since everything else in the app uses the public APIs and services.

As a programmer, you understand that. However, I was dealing with marketing guys who by their own admission, don't know squat about software development. They simply couldn't make the mental leap necessary to understand how easily this impasse could be resolved.

Who loses? Palm's customers.