Another day goes by and another “mobile application store” is announced. That is how it felt earlier this year when everyone was playing catch-up with Apple’s App Store. So when Palm announced webOS, it was only natural that this new platform just had to have some way for it’s users to add programs on the device. Palm’s answer was the App Catalog. Even though it is still in beta, the App Catalog has offered native third party apps since the first Palm Pre, the first device running Palm’s new webOS platform, was sold. While the App Catalog is important, I honestly believe that it is not as important right now as some of the programs that allow you to install Homebrew, third party apps that are not available in the App Catalog, programs like Filecoaster and Preload. Why?

One of the weakest parts of Apple’s App Store is that you cannot really deal with beta/alpha testing unless you go through iTunes. Even then, developers have a very limited number of spots they can offer to testers. What we end up seeing are “version 1.0″ apps that are not actually complete. The developers release apps and promise updates in the coming weeks/months.

I believe that even after Palm’s App Catalog comes out of beta and developers can charge for apps, the Homebrew catalogs can be used by the developers for testing updates that they do not want to release in the App Catalog. These same Homebrew catalogs can also hold apps if a developer doesn’t want to deal with Palm’s approval process or that Palm rejects.

This is basically like Cydia and Icy, the Jailbreak app catalogs for the iPhone, only Palm has come out in support of the Homebrew community. And this is the biggest distiction. Palm is supporting the developers in a way that Apple never will, by staying out of their way. It may not always stay this way, but so far Palm is content to let developers develop the way the developer sees fit. Sure, Palm may not approve some applications based on the criteria they choose, but that doesn’t mean that they are going to spen time and money making sure those apps will never show up on a webOS device the way that Apple is constantly playing the cat & mouse game with the Jailbreak community.

I am very excited to see how the webOS ecosystem evolves in the coming months and I believe that it will continue to grow, especially with Palm’s current attitude and commitment to their eager developers.

Hello! Happy Wednesday. Just think, for most of us it’s hump day and almost the weekend – hurrah! And here we are onto day 3 of the Great JAMM Registration Drive. Now, surely, those of you that are reading this, but haven’t yet registered – c’mon??? Seriously, we’ve got great prizes to give away, and the best is yet to come!

Just go to the JAMM homepage, hit the “login” button and you can register from there -  it’s that easy!

Well, seeing as today’s giveaway is a little close to my heart, and being the marketing person/office manager/general dogsbody in my office, I get to pick what PPCTechs gives away. One of you lucky contestants will get the following:

WriteSHIELD Premium Screen Protector MiniKit
Lil’Sync Sync and Charge Cable
Auto Adapter
AC Adapter

For all your mobile needs on the go!

I just have a quick question for you, and the Magic Cats insisted I make it a JAMM related one (they ARE picking the winners of all these contests, you know!)

Who’s your favourite JAMM team member?   <—-that was a joke, by the way 
What’s been your most favourite post on JAMM, and why? Has it been a review, an opinion? What?

By entering this contest, you authorize Just Another Mobile Monday, and its representatives, to provide your personal information (such as, but not limited to your name and email address) to the sponsors of this contest should you be selected as a winner. Your personal information will not be sold by Just Another Mobile Monday, or otherwise retained for any purpose except that described herein.

Wow! We’ve had the most awesome responses to the last two questions! You guys rock……..but WE WANT MORE!!!!!!!!! There’s still 3 days left, so keep registering and answering the Magic Cats’ questions – seriously, the best is YET to come!

Anyway, thanks to the generosity of TalonPR and ElectricPocket, it’s time to announce the winners of Day 2 of the Registration Drive:

crloga2
philsner99

Look out for an email from me today, and congratulations!

I will admit two things up front, I am not a Blackberry fan at all, and I am a huge fan of the work the developers at Touch Mobile have been doing with their Iris web browser. The web browser that RIM has been including in their Blackberry devices is absolutely horrible.  I actually prefer Pocket Internet Explorer over the Blackberry browser, which says a lot about just how bad the Blackberry browser is.

Luckily, RIM must have finally figured out that they fail at making a decent web browser, so they just acquired Torch Mobile, the creators of the Iris web browser.  Iris is based on Webkit, which is the same magic behind a lot of popular web browsers including the ones on the iPhone and Palm Pre.

Iris was one of the first, if not the first, Webkit web browsers that was available on Windows Mobile.  I used it in the early alpha stages because I had switched to Google Reader for all of my RSS feeds a while back.  Iris was able to duplicate the iPhone version of Google Reader fairly well, so it was my go to web browser for catching up with tech news.  Of course, it was definitely not a final product because it would frequently lock up when dealing with heavy JavaScript pages.  With each new version, Iris was getting more and more stable.  This gave me hope that if I had to go back to Windows Mobile for my main device, that I could still get a similar, though slower, web experience as the iPhone.

But, now that hope is crushed.  I do not see anything that officially says they will no longer offer their Windows Mobile version of Iris, but considering their downloads page now gives a nice “403 Forbidden” page.  So, it looks like I will be in search for another browser for Google Reader when I switch back to Windows Mobile…

Do any other Google Reader users use the iPhone version on their Windows Mobile device?  What is your favorite browser to use with Google Reader?

That’s right: it’s not often I whip out the word “Huzzah”, but this is a deserving occasion. I just received my RMA’ed V-Moda Vibe II’s and they’re perfectly compatible with my iPhone 3GS. I wrote a post about the old pair a month ago about how they were weren’t working with my new iPhone, and I was really scared about having to pay some sort of upgrade fee, even though I’d only had this particular pair of Vibe II’s for three months. As it turns out, V-Moda honoured their warranty and sent me an updated pair of Vibe II’s in exchange for my older, incompatible set. This new set has three “rings” along the earphone jack, and if I understand things correctly, that’s why it works with my iPhone 3GS for media playback and voice control. The old pair just activated voice control no matter what I did.

Kudos to V-Moda for the quick responses to my pathetic e-mail crying. I’m really, really glad to have these earphones back. They’re still my favourite pair by far.