With the Palm Pre out the door, the wait is for the software development kit for the PRe to hit the streets. The Mojo SDK is open for limited testing, but apparently, someone decided to leak the download link, and thanks to the web, the SDK can now be downloaded all over the place.
When Palm first showed the Pre in January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, they stated that the device would hit the shops in the first half of 2009. They barely made this deadline, but a casualty of meeting this deadline was the SDK, which was not ready for release alongside the Pre itself. Instead, Palm promised the SDK for this summer.
Well, if you want to, you can already play with the SDK now. A limited access program is under way, and for some reason, Twitter user @robovalzuniga posted a download link. Obviously, the SDK is in beta, and Palm doesn’t want it to be out yet. They haven’t contacted any of the sites reporting on this one just yet (it’s the weekend, after all), but there’s of course also the remote possibility that the SDK isn’t leaked, but that is has been “leaked”. Pure speculation, though, obviously.
And the fact of the matter is – Palm can use the SDK. The application catalogue for the Pre is quite small (they hit the 1 million apps downloaded, though), so Palm could use a number of new applications. The demand is so high, in fact, that Pre tinkerers have already found out an incredibly easy way to get new applications on the device – without even having to root it.
The SDK comes with a webOS emulator, so it could also be fun for those of us without interests as a developer. The leaked file is Windows-only.
Sometimes it looks for me like some companies are using such “leaks” like marketing tools. What’s the point of such behavior? I must be to simple guy to follow all these intrigues, high-level strategies… Or I just don’t believe in good intentions of any company today.
It doesn’t matter if it was “controlled leak” or not. In both scenarios it’s bad thing. I’m not happy with that. One option is, that someone really wanted this “leak” for some unknown reason, the other is that someone just make this leak because he is not responsible.
Are you happy with that? I’m not.
The use of ‘leaks’ have been used for years; from politics to business the best way to get a ‘feel’ for how people react to a given idea or product is to ‘leak it’ so then at least one can quickly distance oneself from the product to save face by claiming it was an incredibly early beta and there is a lot more work to be done (if people complain about flaws in the design (not implementation)) or some other reasoning.
What I think will be the interesting part will be how Palm approach the matter; are they going to come down on enthusiasts like a tonne of bricks (and I call them enthusiasts because I don’t see any malicious intent, assuming it was a leak, it speaks for the enthusiasm people have for this new platform) or will they cut to the chase, launch it as a pre-beta, and use it as an opportunity to say how enthusiastic developers are for this new product (which could also help their share price).
Edited 2009-06-28 01:25 UTC
IMO, Palm should openly release the beta version to everybody right away. If it’s beta, it means it’s not finished yet and everybody understands that. Besides, nothing is ever finished in the computer world, so who cares? That’s how Microsoft and the others stay in business, right?
True
But one also has to recognise the difference between interface stability (in the form of API’s) and product stability. I’d assume that the reason why they hadn’t released it was because WebOS is still undergoing some changes as demonstrated by the quick succession of updates. I’m sure Palm doesn’t want to release an SDK only to find that over the next 6 months there will be major interface changes as things settle down and thus leave software developers aiming at a moving target.
I’ve hear that GNOME 3 source code has been leaked also.
“The ship of governement is the only ship that leaks from the top”
lol, reminds me of the question from the reporter, “so, how would you like it represented? sources close to the prime minister? anonymous insider divulges information?”
Mind you, they do say the definition of pickaniny is: “the process where by the prime minister is chosen” (courtesy of, “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue”).
Great citation! 🙂 It will be my email signature 🙂