Mobility Mind

Are we seeing the end of the Palm software community?

It must be very difficult to be a Palm OS developer right now. We know that the current Palm OS is old and tired, and just waiting to be retired. The new Palm OS won’t be running on any devices until next year. In the meantime, a very healthy mobile application industry has emerged, with a lot of choices in terms of devices, operating systems and application frameworks. What’s the best way to go? Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, iPhone?

Several Palm OS developers have seen the end in sight for the (current) Palm OS, and has graciously given away their software products for free. Ellams Software is giving away their entire games catalogue, including Air Hockey 3D, Agent Z and Jetman Jack. Dmitry Grinberg has stopped developing for Palm and is offering SkinUI for free. PDAmill Game Studios is also giving away all of their games.

For Palm OS users, this is a both a good and bad thing. The good part is of course all the free software. The bad part is, we will probably not see anything new from developers for Palm OS this year. We may also see some developers who will stop developing for Palm altogether, and focusing on more viable markets like Windows Mobile and the iPhone. SplashData, Inc recently released new versions SplashID secure password manager and SplashMoney personal finance application (both Palm OS applications) for the Mac platform. It’s just a small, logical step for them to create iPhone versions.

Palm needs to work extra hard to keep developers motivated and well incentivized — a year is a long time to wait for the new Palm OS.