Palm announced the Mojo software development kit for its webOS platform will not be publicly available until the end of summer 2009. "We've been working very hard on the SDK and are eager to open access on a wider scale, but the software and the developer services to support it just aren't ready yet," writes Palm Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach on the Palm Developer Network Blog. According to Von Rospach, the device maker will immediately accelerate the growth of its Mojo early access program, expanding as quickly as resources allow and promising that over the next few weeks, the program will expand from hundreds of developers to thousands. In addition, Palm will begin publishing more content outside the early access program, and will introduce new confidentiality rules to enable early Mojo developers to communicate more freely. Von Rospach adds Palm will open the SDK to all legitimate requests "as soon as we can."
Von Rospach also responded to a recent wave of webOS hacks, writing "We're focused on building a robust and easy-to-use Mojo SDK, and an ecosystem that benefits developers, end users, carriers and Palm alike. As on any popular platform, we recognize that some developers will experiment in ways that cross official boundaries, but we believe that our formal offerings--and community efforts built around those offerings--will provide the best experience for the vast majority of webOS developers and users."
Although Palm's App Catalog storefront currently offers only 30 webOS applications for the new Pre smartphone, Softpedia reports consumers have so far downloaded more than 800,000 apps in all, 150,000 of them on the phone's first day of retail availability earlier this month. App Catalog--which went live nine days prior to the Pre's June 6 launch--topped the 800,000 benchmark on June 20, three days after downloads totaled 660,000. At the current rate of about 46,700 Pre app downloads a day, App Catalog should clear the 1 million download mark by the end of this week.
For more on the Mojo SDK release schedule:
- read this Palm Developer Network Blog entry
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