Palm confirms games are in development for Pre, drops a few other tidbits

We sat down with Palm today and in addition to spotting that soft-touch cover we chatted them up on where things stand, how things are progressing, and various other clarifications about webOS and the Pre that have yet to be made. Palm's staying pretty tight-lipped and under-the-radar at the show, despite bringing a Europe-friendly HSDPA handset to show off -- they're not making any big announcements along those lines until there's a carrier firmed up, and not even clarifying what bands are supported. The build of webOS is exactly the same as what was at CES, and Palm still isn't letting the device slip out of its firm grip for a bit of rogue hands-on time.

Palm did confirm that games are in development for webOS, and seems a little defensive at accusations that the OS can't handle that stuff -- Palm hasn't changed its stance on app development, of course, there are no "native" apps allowed currently, but they seem more reticent to admit that web-style app development will limit gaming options. Perhaps they're hoping Adobe's Open Screen Project will save them some grief on this front, since Flash will be ready for webOS by the end of the year. Palm's currently working with a small amount of developers in private beta, refining the SDK to their feedback and needs, and will slowly expand that as the phone approaches launch, but we don't expect a full SDK to reach Joe the Coder until very close to before or after the launch. We asked about the potential for a soft keyboard, and they said that there's no reason that developers couldn't build their own -- though we're not sure how that would work. Out of the gate developers won't have super deep access to the OS from what we understand -- they wouldn't be able to do something like Facebook's level of OS-wide contacts integration, for instance -- but Palm hopes to open those APIs up further down the line.

We get the impression that Palm feels version 1.0 of webOS is very feature complete, and that the most surprises we'll get from here to launch will be mostly along the lines of 3rd party development and release details.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 19th 2009 8:02AM]

How good can the games be if they're working off the net? How does the development process work, does anyone know? Will there be a gap in Pre gaming in between its launch, and the introduction of mobile flash?

Ben
thephonelounge.com

[SoCoolCurt Posted Feb 19th 2009 3:37PM]

i think the whole point is that people just dont know right now what it's going to be capable of gaming wise. for me at least, gaming on my phone is really not a big deal. sure i wouldn't mind a solitare or bejeweled time waster but it would be the end of the world if my phone couldnt play games. especially when i have a PSP, DS, and Zune more than capable of doing just that on the go.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 19th 2009 8:35AM]

What about a release date? Did that not come up? :-P

[SoCoolCurt Posted Feb 19th 2009 3:35PM]

i think they would let us know if a release date came up. just watch the headlines, they'll announce it eventually.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 19th 2009 10:46AM]

The applications that are written do not have to operate over the web, it just uses code that is used on the web. You will have the code on your device and the os interprets it but web is not neccessary. Think of google gears.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 19th 2009 6:36PM]

I was really excited about the Pre when it was first announced.
Now that i see phones more in tune with what I'm looking for at MWC I think I'm going to pass on the Pre.