[damnregister]

Thanks for the insight, this thread should be Sticky.

[ken e]

honestly, after seeing some of the games for the iphone, i am ready to return my pre. The fact that i'm locked into a contract makes me more angry, and reinforces my belief that big companies can practice unethical or poor customer service because "they got you". What i would like to know is on who's end the holdup is - Palm or Bell, and my guess would be Bell. Really - the EA games both FREE and PAID are both geo-targetted to the US??? ok, take 10 years to collect my $6.00 (sorry $12.00CA cause nobody in big business seems to have gotten the memo that the Canada $$ has been almost on par with the US for virtually 6 years now.) and let us have access to the free version till we can buy the full version.

The US is practically the 11th province of Canada, yet we in the other 13 prov/territories only get to hear about what our phones could be doing if our for fathers had fought just a wee bit harder, and the Americans were still paying tribute to the queen. I don't get it, i don't give a damn about borders and flags, i want decent apps - and frankly, i don't give much of a hoot for reviews, cause as has been said before, most reviews are the bad ones from users that can't read or simply refuse to do so. It takes so little of my time to install an app, check it out for myself, and remove it if it's not what i want, that reading a review is just a waste of my time. The fact that the App catalogue uses reviews to weight the search results seems like really bad practice. It might be considered evasive to stat how many times the app is actually used, or collect other data, ie if the app is uninstalled. But using reviews to determine popularity would be like selecting the next president based on late night talk show's top 10.

I read about the postcard app and i can relate to how they are motivated by stupid people, if it's bottom line revenue, then well - go for it. But i just can wrap my mind around how Need for Speed or SIMS needs to be geo-targeted to the US?! If the service isn't going to be limited, then why add geo-tags? and to Palm, Bell and any other player - we bought into your market because we believed you offered something better than what the competition offered. Now, not only are the apps still not available, the phone is now 1/4 of the price i paid for it, so not only are we paying premium $$ to help development and marketing, were only getting treated with contempt for our trouble and investment. Well, discounted or not, i'll not be recommending the Pre to as many people as i have been - great phone, but alas, we have no plan to live in the US - and i'm sick of being punished for where i happened to be born. The excellent hardware and software is handicapped by flag waving, and it SUCKS! Some will continue to cry at your feet, but alas, the rest of us will vote with our wallets. If i could return my Pre tomorrow for an iPhone, i would, and for anyone reading this - forget hardware reviews - look for the apps and features you want, and use that as the basis for your next purchase.

[Blacklight]

The only problem for me right now is: we don't have a statement from Palm yet wether they are planning to continue the geo-filter or not. I was hoping for such a statement when they shut down access to the free apps.

I'm going to wait until April, lets see if anything changes after Palm grants access to paid apps. We will then still be able to see the amount of apps we can't access due to geo-filtering.

I'm not sure if Palm is still not aware of the problem or if they simply don't care about customers world wide (paid apps took them long enough). Either way, and regardless of a 50% loss in value, I will then decide if I'm going to sell my Pre and go for Android. For now, I cannot recommend a WebOS device to anyone.. I wish I could.

[shinebar]

I think they'll continue to geo-block the applications. Even the Facebook-Beta-App is only available for US, CA and GB. In my oppinion this is absolutely hilarious. Using the beta-feed I'm aware of installing software that isn't perfect. And for that reason a missing translation for parts of the app wouldn't bother me.

[milanroubal]

I must say I have opposite problem - I am the english speaking man living and wokring in Germany and I don't understand why this kind of applications are just in German language. Applications like yours, that is available world wide should choose the language from the settings the user made in time of setting up the mobile phone. So even when I live in germany, so I have access to the free catalog for europe and your application can speak both languages, I would expect that the installed application will choose the interface language from the palm settings. So when I receive such application, that is only in German, I am also putting there low amount of stars as this application is not fully usable for me.

[Blacklight]

So when I receive such application, that is only in German, I am also putting there low amount of stars as this application is not fully usable for me.

That's Palm's fault if the current location is relevant instead of the settings from the phone when it comes to app language. So why do you punish the developers by giving a low rating?? Sorry, but I really don't get how people can be so ignorant, you are hurting the wrong people!

[memfel]

That's Palm's fault if the current location is relevant instead of the settings from the phone when it comes to app language. So why do you punish the developers by giving a low rating?? Sorry, but I really don't get how people can be so ignorant, you are hurting the wrong people!

Why do u say that the current location is relevant for language? where does this come from?
the geo-filtering thing has nothing to do with the language an app can use, if this is what u try to mean. as it has been said in another thread about this same kind of problem, a guy who submitted his first app to the market found that for default all regions are clicked, and apparently there is also a check for "other regions" (the unoffical ones), that is also clicked by default. that means, if we get the things right, that Palm is now for a submission and availability of the app worldwide, therefore what we don't see in the market is most probably not due to else than devs choice. apart, of course, if the market app has some bug in it.

[Blacklight]

Why do u say that the current location is relevant for language? where does this come from?
the geo-filtering thing has nothing to do with the language an app can use, if this is what u try to mean.

I know this has nothing to do with the geo-filtering, I'm referring to milanroubal's post right above mine:

So even when I live in germany, so I have access to the free catalog for europe and your application can speak both languages, I would expect that the installed application will choose the interface language from the palm settings.

So I guess an application in more than one language, e.g. English and German, is displaying the language of the App Catalog it was downloaded from, and ignores the language settings of the actual device.

I just got a little upset because milanroubal is giving 0-star ratings, but this has nothing to do with the actual app.

[memfel]

i think he was reasoning more hypothetically on the app that started this thread. what he says is more like that he's an English speaker and living in Germany he doesn't see any reason for which he should be obliged to use the German language version of the app, while, instead, it would be better, as we said also more than once in this thread, to have an app in which u set the language u prefer, or, at best, the app reads ur personal language settings from the phone. an app in more than one language give u the choice of the language u prefer, app catalog is not forcing a language of an app.

i think his reasoning about why an app can get a bad vote just because it's unusable for language problems should make the developer of the first thread think about his policy of distribution. One app with a menu for language choice, instead of a preset language, maybe is the best choice.
Then, the user that doesn't speak german and pretends to score an app clearly in german is surely making some bad job...either he should get a dictionary, or he should stop voting smth he doesn't understand, i agree with u.

[Blacklight]

Both of us understood him perfectly fine. I'm just not sure that this is a developers choice? I haven't developed any app for WebOS yet, but I think the dev just implements two or more languages. Which language is used is not up to the developer, I don't even know if it's possible to give a language choice in the settings. Anyway, there shouldn't be the need for such a choice, because Palm should read the phone settings. So, I see this issue on Palm's side (once again), and rating apps with 0 stars because of this is just not acceptable... imho.

[memfel]

Palm should allow devs to read language settings from the phone, but this doesn't mean that a developer will choose to use this function, and again, if an app is submitted to the catalog in french or english or german that is Palm fault.
A dev develops his app with the setting he likes, and if u get what the dev of the first post here said he develops his app in many different languages for his own choice to do so, not for the Pre limits or for the impossibility to give the app more translations (which i guess just depends on some code lines more and a file with the words in each different allowed language).
I think u blame it a bit too much on Palm, while apps are not developed by Palm, nor submitted by Palm. Palm needs to take care of the clarity of the submission process and of the functionality of the market, but what the devs submit is their choice.

[milanroubal]

I know this has nothing to do with the geo-filtering, I'm referring to milanroubal's post right above mine:


So I guess an application in more than one language, e.g. English and German, is displaying the language of the App Catalog it was downloaded from, and ignores the language settings of the actual device.

I just got a little upset because milanroubal is giving 0-star ratings, but this has nothing to do with the actual app.

Hi Blacklight,
of course it is developer case. Palm SDK offers the functionality to ask the system to get system choosed language and than it can show all text in the user prefered language. Look for example on your palm device to folder /usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.messaging/resources and you can see there for each available language one folder. So the expected behaviour from the application is, that the application language is choosen automatical from the user preferences and the location for application is choosed only in case, that application needs specific location for its own functionality like explained in this thread. This behaviour of developers is really needed here as the palm pre that is sold unrestricted in Germany is than used in different countries over whole europe.

[Blacklight]

Ok, I actually thought developers just submit their application in different languages, and then it's up to the WebOS which language is selected by default based on the phone settings. At least that's how it should be in my opinion. If I got this wrong, nevermind.