HP webOS Developer Blog

We are proud to announce the winners of our PDK Hot Apps Promotion. Check out the complete list here.

This program was a lot of fun, and really raised the bar on the type and quality of apps we offer our Palm Pre and Pixi users. For all those who participated, we hope that in the course of this promotion, you’ve enjoyed the benefits of being a webOS developer and access to our enthusiastic user-base.

An exciting upside for us about the promotion was all the great feedback from developers who said they were porting their apps with the webOS PDK quickly – in some cases two to three days! PDK Hot App winner, Phil Hassey (Galcon, Cosmic Nitro), wrote a blog journaling his three-day port of Galcon to webOS. We also recently featured Hot Apps winner 10tons Ltd., who grabbed top spots for Sparkle and Azkend.

We could go on because there are so many cool winning apps, but for now we’ll wrap with the paid and free $100,000 winners. Stay tuned, though, because we plan to feature more fantastic Hot Apps in the coming months!

Congratulations to all our winners!

Winner, Paid Apps – Angry Birds

Angry Birds by Rovio entered the promotion about half way through with a reputation that preceded it – as one of the most popular games worldwide on iPhone/iPad and now webOS. This game provides hours of fun as users find ways to hurl Angry Birds towards unique castle formations housing a band of menacing green pigs.

Winner, Free Apps – Glow Hockey FREE

Glow Hockey FREE from indie game developer Natenai Ariyatrakool was a real Cinderella story. This classic air hockey game with fun retro Tron-ish visuals was a sleeper hit that took the top spot over some very popular free apps.

After a fast and furious competition the PDK Hot Apps promotion ends tonight! There’s still activity near the top of the charts, so it can be anyone’s game. Tune in tomorrow to see the final (but unofficial) standings.

If you have a favorite game be sure to buy a copy and spread the word to your fellow webOS users. My current addiction: Azkend by 10tons Ltd. What’s yours?

Hot Apps is coming into the final stretch with just a little over a week left. The competition is really heating up. Angry Birds is still number one on the paid side, which I think we all expected. They are one of the top iPhone/iPad apps and webOS users world wide were excited to get Angry Birds before Android. The unexpected leader is the free game Glow Hockey from indie game developer Natenai Ariyatrakool. This classic air hockey game with fun retro Tronish visuals has been a real surprise hit. But of course, with more than a week to go anything could happen.

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My “me” has more than one “I”: I am a gamer, I am a mobile app enthusiast, and I am an avid webOS user. Plasma Cannon makes each one of those guys smile. Rob Merrell did an amazing job of crafting a physics-based puzzle game that is quick to learn and offers more than one solution to most of the challenges. The initial levels use the now-standard-in-AAA-titles-but-I-wish-more-developers-would-clue-in tactic of acting as an in-game tutorial. The learning curve is gentle and approached organically, while always remembering the user is playing a game and expects a fun experience.

A particularly fun level

The game world is simple, stable, and consistent. Each of the elements introduced, from the initial simple cannonballs through some of the more exotic features like the gravity switches behaved exactly as I would expect. The game’s simple UI and mechanics stayed out of my way while giving me the fine level of control to solve some of the more complicated challenges with a single shot. While it is possible to outsmart yourself and destroy all chances for success in a challenge you are always a simple back-gesture away from a reset game board.

Plasma Cannon stands as an ideal example of the type of casual yet addictive apps the PDK can power on webOS. Graphically simple and clean with a top-notch physics engine, a responsive UI, perfectly timed sound effects, and a catchy soundtrack, this one of the most fun games I have played yet on webOS. Do yourself a favor and try Plasma Cannon Lite — and if you like it, buy Plasma Cannon. You will not be disappointed. If you are a developer, aim your cannon at Plasma Cannon — it is not too late to submit and climb the leader boards yourself!

[Editor's note: After reviewing X-Plane, your intrepid editor's son discovered MiniSquadron, and asked if we would let him write another review. Who are we to turn down such willing help? Enjoy!]

As you can probably tell from my last review, I love planes. I also love arcade games. When you combine the two, you have me hooked. In MiniSquadron, you pilot a fighter plane in a cartoon world filled with ducks, seagulls, and enemy fighters of all varieties. Your job is to defeat the waves of enemies as they come in, collecting power-ups and unlocking new planes along the way.

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We are well into the second half of the PDK Hot Apps competition and things are really starting to heat up. In just the last week Pixi Dust moved down two spots from #1 to #3, replaced by Glow Hockey FREE and Raging Thunder. On the paid side Angry Birds continues to dominate the #1 spot, but Crusade of Destiny has stolen the #2 spot from Galcon, which is now pushed down to #3.

In the lower brackets we are seeing tons of movement. Don’t touch! went from nowhere to #20 in just a few days, and the great action puzzler Sparkle has broken into the 10k bracket for the first time, now sitting at #15.

In the Fast Movers section, Don’t touch! is the top free app and shop keeper sim gane Miriel the Magical Merchant is still the #1 fast moving paid app by a wide margin. Though currently only at #81 we wouldn’t be surprised to see it in one of the upper brackets soon.

That’s it for this week in Hot Apps. There’s still plenty of time to earn some hot cash, so keep those apps coming.

Wow, what a difference a week makes!

Last week saw the release of several highly anticipated games for webOS. Rovio’s Angry Birds, by some counts the most popular game on the iPad, has made it’s webOS debut. Filled with crazy pig defeating action, it has already wasted countless hours here at Palm HQ. Astraware also released their highly anticipated Sudoku and OddBlob apps. Go go webOS games!

Angry Birds and Pixi Dust are still dominating the top spots while the 50k tier has seen some back and forth jockeying for position. Galcon had slipped into #4 for a bit, but is back up to #3. On the free side Glow Hockey FREE came out of no where and zoomed straight to #2 in just a week. Clearly there’s demand for great new webOS apps.

Lower down in the rankings we are seeing a ton of movement.
Last week we had a few empty spots on the free side, but no more. Don’t think it means you can’t compete, however. We’ve still got a month left and every day a few more apps go from nothing to be right in middle of the pack. We’ve gotten an influx of interesting music & sound apps, including Drummer, Tonal Pool,
Mini Piano, Dog Whistle, and the always handy Service Bell.

On the Fast Mover’s side we can see that Angry Birds and Glow Hockey top the chart, no surprise, but further down there are a ton of interesting new apps popping up; such as The Billy Goat Brain Academy and puzzler Sigma from BigStack Studios.

Oh, and one more thing. webOS 1.4.5 shipped for the Verizon Pixi Pluses last night, which means there are even more phones out their waiting to buy your Hot Apps. Time to get to hackin’ on more apps!

Editor’s note: Today, we’re featuring a guest blogger – your intrepid editor’s son Rick,  who is 14 and almost as big a flight simulator buff as his dad. When I mentioned that I intended to do an”Interesting Apps” post on X-Plane, he quickly volunteered to do it for me!

We’re both big fans—I was probably one of the very first purchasers of X-Plane for webOS—and we’ve both had a blast playing the many versions of X-Plane that are available. Take it away, Rick!

I’ve played flight simulators for a long time, and when I first played X-Plane for webOS, I was amazed how well it compared to the desktop versions of X-Plane and other simulators. While most of the game apps I’ve played focus on making either the environment, characters, or gameplay beautiful, X-Plane was able to combine all of those characteristics into one amazing package.

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Greetings app fans! Apps are back in a big way! The competition is heating up and the apps are showing no sign of cooling down.

Pixi Dust is still the #1 free app, but ultra cool emulator VisualBoyAdvance, has taken the #1 paid spot from Crusade of Destiny. New to the fast movers is the free app Natural Drums, a complete drumset in your pocket. The new #1 Fast Mover in the paid lineup is Sparkle, a fun puzzle game with glowing orbs.

Though it’s only in the 10k bracket right now, I want to give a special mention to pixel shooter Radiant, and it’s lite version Radiant Lite. Radiant is an arcade game in the style of Galaga. It’s not just any shooter, though. It’s a wonderful nostalgic look at classic arcade games from the view of players who grew up with it, now translated into modern form. It has a rockin’ electronic soundtrack, cute characters with a chunky pixely feel, and everything is bathed in a soft Tron-esque light. If you are a child of the 80s then you’ll love Radiant.

That’s it for Hot Apps this week. The competition is roaring and PDK apps are flooding into the catalog. However, there are still 12 empty slots in the free category that could be filled with your app. Get to codin’!

If you were one of the winners of our first Hot Apps promotion, you may be looking for a way to capitalize on your success. One way to do that is to promote your app using our new Hot Apps Award logo.

We’ve put together a set of usage guidelines on the Developer Portal. Check out the article here for more information, and to learn how to get your official copy of the logo.

Thanks to everybody who participated! We hope to see your PDK apps soon in our new PDK Hot Apps promotion.