3 ms·

As a developer of a few WebOS apps, I'll publicly say that HP hasn't done anything to entice me to continue developing for them. From not doing anything to sell

by eekfuh 16y ago

As a developer of a few WebOS apps, I'll publicly say that HP hasn't done anything to entice me to continue developing for them. From not doing anything to sell more devices to not helping developers write good apps, by having the worst documentation and public api's available.

msbarnett 16y ago
It's interesting. They've been talking a good game as far as attracting developers go, but they don't seem to be following it up well. Watching the TouchPad unveiling, I thought it looked pretty interesting, and I like the idea of a JavaScript based SDK, so I decided to check out their developer tools. Everything went downhill from there. The currently shipping version of the OS is 2.0 on the Palm Pre 2, and WebOS 3.0 is coming Real Soon Now. Posts from various people in their forums suggest new developers start with the 2.0 framework for easier forward compatibility with 3.0 devices. So what's the latest version of the SDK you can download? 1.4.5. The WebOS 2.0 SDK is apparently "in Beta", and the only link to it is a mailto: address. Apparently I'm supposed to ask nicely just so I can experiment with the current version of their platform that they've been shipping for several months? And why is 3.0 completely missing in action? HP needs devs targetting their upcoming devices ASAP, not months after they ship.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  Seems to be a repeat of two years ago - announce new product - wait 6 months - release product - then release an SDK. I'd have thought two years later they'd be a bit better "pre"pared :) The excuses given two years ago ranged from "gotta get to market so fast!" and "we're just a small company competing against apple!". It's two years later, they're part of HP, and the importance of getting developers on the most current and pre-release version of an SDK should be apparent to anyone with a pulse at HP.

by eekfuh 16y ago

msbarnett 16y ago

It's interesting. They've been talking a good game as far as attracting developers go, but they don't seem to be following it up well. Watching the TouchPad unveiling, I thought it looked pretty interesting, and I like the idea of a JavaScript based SDK, so I decided to check out their developer tools. Everything went downhill from there. The currently shipping version of the OS is 2.0 on the Palm Pre 2, and WebOS 3.0 is coming Real Soon Now. Posts from various people in their forums suggest new developers start with the 2.0 framework for easier forward compatibility with 3.0 devices. So what's the latest version of the SDK you can download? 1.4.5. The WebOS 2.0 SDK is apparently "in Beta", and the only link to it is a mailto: address. Apparently I'm supposed to ask nicely just so I can experiment with the current version of their platform that they've been shipping for several months? And why is 3.0 completely missing in action? HP needs devs targetting their upcoming devices ASAP, not months after they ship.

mgkimsal 16y ago
Seems to be a repeat of two years ago - announce new product - wait 6 months - release product - then release an SDK. I'd have thought two years later they'd be a bit better "pre"pared :) The excuses given two years ago ranged from "gotta get to market so fast!" and "we're just a small company competing against apple!". It's two years later, they're part of HP, and the importance of getting developers on the most current and pre-release version of an SDK should be apparent to anyone with a pulse at HP.