HP webOS Developer Blog

After announcing the next exciting chapter of webOS at February 9’s Think Beyond event, we took our show on-the-road, hosting a webOS App Developer Conference at Mobile World Congress. The excitement and buzz around webOS and upcoming devices like the HP TouchPad were incredible. We had an awesome time meeting with everyone and hope everyone there had a blast.

If you couldn’t make it to Barcelona, we posted videos from the event to help you re-live all the magic. These sessions include a look at what’s new in webOS, really cool demos with upcoming devices like the Pre 3 and TouchPad, as well as a closer look at Enyo, our next generation application framework.

You can check out the individual videos below, or watch them all as a playlist on our YouTube channel.

Part 1 – Introduction with Jason Zajac

Part 2 – webOS update with Joe Hayashi

Part 3 – webOS demonstration with Sachin Kansal

Part 4 – Development overview with Gray Norton

Part 5 – Enyo overview with Matt McNulty

The fun has just begun. Enjoy and stay tuned!

Couldn’t make it to our developer event at Think Beyond? Watch the session with Matthew McNulty, Director of Frameworks and Tools for webOS, who provides a closer look at Enyo, our next generation application framework.

Like what you see? What else would you like to know? Post your questions and comments and we’ll tackle as many of them as we can in future posts.

This has been quite a week, with the announcement of an incredible lineup of devices in the Veer, Pre 3 and the TouchPad and a closer look at the next generation of webOS development with our new Enyo framework.

Now, I’m sure many of you are wondering where that leaves apps you’ve developed or want to develop with Mojo. In other words, what should I do now? It’s a choice only you can make, but we believe there are two great opportunities for all webOS developers.

Creating Mojo apps for exciting, all-new HP smartphones

Press and users alike are excited about the all-new Veer and Pre 3. The great news is that these new smartphones come with webOS 2.x, which support apps created in Mojo. These phones provide a huge opportunity for you to update and deliver apps for all-new webOS devices people will want and love for a long time.

To help out, we are extending our free Pre 2 program to all qualified developers. Contact us at devmarketing@palm.com to see how you can receive the latest device to test your apps.

Looking ahead, if you choose to develop new apps in Mojo, you should factor in the effort that will be required to rebuild these apps in Enyo. Rest assured, we’re going to give you the tools and resources to make this transition as smooth as possible.

HP is ready to provide the strongest marketing and distribution ever for webOS devices. We want to work with our development community to provide your apps to more customers worldwide.

Creating Enyo apps for the next generation of webOS devices

While Mojo has been the foundation for apps on current webOS devices and the upcoming Veer and Pre 3, Enyo is the future. We’re working hard to get these tools into your hands quickly, so you can start dreaming about the amazing capabilities that will power webOS 3.0 devices, starting with the HP TouchPad. You’ll be able to leverage this work for Enyo-based smartphone updates as well.

Moving forward, working with Enyo represents an enormous opportunity. HP intends to expand webOS to printers, PCs and beyond – tens of millions of devices every year, beyond smartphones and tablets.

Two great opportunities for all webOS developers

Enyo is the future of webOS development. But Mojo still provides a great opportunity for you to develop and build great apps for the Veer and Pre 3, which we’re putting huge resources behind to get them to as many users as possible.

We hope you see great opportunities developing for the webOS of today and the webOS of tomorrow. Every transition has its challenges but we intend to work hard to give you everything you need throughout this transition.

We appreciate your work, patience and support as we all move forward towards this huge opportunity!

Even with all the exciting news from this week, a lot of questions have been floating around about our plans and how they affect you and our customers. As such, we recognize that we need to do a better job communicating developments in a more timely, detailed and thoughtful way.

For now, we want to address the webOS 2.0 update in particular and what resources we’ll provide to make this transition easier for everyone.

webOS 2.0 Availability

First off, the decision not to release webOS 2.0 for the Pre and Pixi was incredibly tough, knowing that we couldn’t deliver the latest and greatest to people that supported webOS from the very beginning. But, it was a decision that had to be made and we hope our plans for the next generation of webOS will provide the best platform for everyone moving forward. Here are some additional thoughts for your reference.

Supporting the transition to webOS 2.0 and beyond

With the exciting announcement of HP’s all-new Veer, Pre 3 and game-changing TouchPad, we want to give you the resources you need to develop apps for webOS 2.0 and beyond:

• Extending our free Pre 2 program for qualified developers: Contact us at devmarketing@palm.com – we want to help you test your app on the latest devices.
• Redoubling our resources to support developers: We are actively expanding resources to help you develop for webOS, from how we handle email support via pdc@palm.com to a dedicated team that’s better equipped to help you every step of the way.
• New incentives and promotions: We’ll share more details about how we intend to reward your efforts and support of webOS.

It’s a start. We want to provide the resources you need and deserve every step of the way, whatever it takes. There’s a lot of buzz around the new webOS devices and the future of the platform, which offer a great opportunity for your apps now and in the future. HP is going to provide the strongest support and promotion webOS has ever had – and it all starts with you. Stay tuned!

The Palm Hot Apps $1 million dollar reward is running strong. If you haven’t gotten an new application into the catalog, you may be thinking “ah, it is too late to make an impact and get some money”; but you would be wrong.

The best example of this is Tweet Me, a beautiful new Twitter client by Paul Smith. Take a look over at the hot apps leaderboard and you will see that it is running at #121 (as of today). This is incredible when you see that it has only been in the catalog for less than a week. Add to that the fact that there is a ton of competition with other fantastic Twitter apps (Bad Kitty, Tweed, Twee, Spaz, and more).

Paul took the time to deliver a beautiful application and it has made an instant impact. This means that if you take the time to build a compelling application for webOS, you have a great chance of great success in hot apps too! Also, it isn’t just about hot apps. Our customers are looking for great applications and buying them. Give them a chance to buy yours

Want to see how nice Tweet Me is? Check out the video:

I have also been blogging about some mobile user experience conventions and practices that I have been seeing as I watch the landscape, and our team builds the Facebook application.

In Just Type I discuss making the most of the hardware keyboard, showing how you can easily add keyboard shortcuts, and having smart actions when the user starts to type on a scene.

In the power of dashboards I talk about our awesome non-modal notification system and how applications are using it in new and exciting ways.

Have you seen or created a fun interaction? Please share with us. We know that we have only touched the tip of the iceberg with the platform.

Game developers interested in accelerating profitability of existing and future apps are invited to join Palm to learn more about webOS at two upcoming conferences.

We’ll  kick off an exciting week at the Flash Gaming Summit, hosted by Mochi Media, on Monday March 8th at UCSF’s Mission Bay Conference Center. This one-day conference brings together the leaders in the Flash gaming industry, and Palm is proud to sponsor and support the growth of the Flash community. We’ll be showing cool demos and will have some fun giveaways. We’ll also have news about upcoming enhancements to the webOS developer experience that you won’t want to miss! We’d love for you to share this exciting day with us.

Hot on the heels of the Flash Gaming Summit, Palm will be out in full force at the Game Developers Conference at Moscone Center, March 11 – 13.  Come see us in booth #2016 to learn more about how game developers are benefiting from the first-mover advantage in the webOS app ecosystem. Learn how webOS makes it easy to develop and distribute your apps, and to increase the profitability of your app business. Plus, get hands-on with demos of the hottest new game titles.

As previously announced, we’ll be releasing a beta of our Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit. GDC attendees will be able to learn more at 3:00 pm on Friday when Jeff Bush, Palm’s Director of webOS Graphics & Gaming, will be leading a session on how to create games with the PDK.

See you there!

You may have noticed a new option on the “App Info” page when submitting or updating your applications – a place to enter a YouTube URL. With the release of webOS 1.4, your application’s page in the App Catalog can now link to a YouTube video about your app. If you place a YouTube link in this field, the video thumbnail will be displayed on the App Catalog page.

App Catalog Video Preview

When a potential customer clicks on the link, the device’s YouTube application will open and play the video, giving you the opportunity to show off your application’s potential.

We do ask that you follow the Palm Application Content Criteria when creating your video. Adding a YouTube link counts as a meta-data update, so it will be reviewed.

So, get ready to get creative with video – we’d love to see videos for every application in the catalog!

What’s happening in webOSland is a collection of interesting links to articles and conversations about webOS and webOS development. If you have something you think we might want to include in future postings, you can send it to us at pdc@palm.com or via twitter to @webosdev

• Introducing appRoundup
• Tim Anderson: Ares, an online IDE for App development

What’s happening in webOSland is a collection of interesting links to articles and conversations about webOS and webOS development. If you have something you think we might want to include in future postings, you can send it to us at pdc@palm.com or via twitter to @webosdev

• Engadget: reviews the new Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones on Verizon.
• As Engadget also notes, we’re going to be at the Game Developer’s Conference this year. Pop by and say hi.
• Lionel Laske: OneNote on iPhone and Palm Pré using Windows Azure

What’s happening in webOSland is a collection of interesting links to articles and conversations about webOS and webOS development. If you have something you think we might want to include in future postings, you can send it to us at pdc@palm.com or via twitter to @webosdev

• Ajaxian: Project Appetite, $1m How App program, and more. Boss-man Dion talks about our CES announcements over on the Ajaxian blog.
• WebOS School: now all of our app goodnes available via RSS
• Ajaxian: View Source; how important was it, is it, and will it be?
• Rick Neff: Start here — developing for WebOS.
• William Clausen: Palm Ares Development Tutorial Walkthroughs
• Michael Gartenberg: Good Idea from Palm. Hope it Catches On.
• GigaOM: The Apple App Store Economy (some interesting background info here for webOS Devs…)
• Daniel Beames: WebOS Patches Web Portal Now Online
• House of Palm: Online webOs Discovery Engine and App Store