In another interview courtesy of PDA-247, we take a look at what an independent developer, Tony Kingsmill of Loftcat, has to say about WebOS and the Pre. When asked about his initial impressions of the Palm Pre, Kingsmill was impressed with the direction Palm was taking, stating:
The hardware looks decent enough...on the software side Palm is talking up the ease of PIM functionality, which is obviously one thing they have done well in the past. I’m interested to see how easy to use the whole platform turns out. For me Palm OS simplifies everything such as connecting Bluetooth devices and installing programs.
Asked about Palm's future, Kingsmill said that mass-marketing the new device is the key to their success.
However, when asked about his plans for porting his existing titles and developing for the new platform, he wasn't putting everything on hold right now. He stated the need, as an independent developer, to make "tough decisions about what projects and platforms to choose". Also, even though webOS uses industry standard development platforms, his strengths have been Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Therefore, there would be a considerable learning curve involved. So when can we see new titles coming out?
I’m watching Web OS development news closely though and taking another look at things in another five or six months.
Looks like it might be quite a while until we see more programs from Loftcat. It appears other developers may have trouble bringing their apps up to code as well, such as in the interview with Handcase, in which they were frustrated at having to "redo" apps for the Pre. Is the lack of backwards compatibility to blame? Perhaps as more established developers voice out their concerns, Palm will allow some level of compatibility with Legacy apps, or offer better tools to deal with conversion.
Loftcat is an independent Palm developer, whose products have appeared in the UK Magazine PDA Essentials cover CD several times between 2004 and 2005, and made PDA-247 Top 5 PDA Sports Games in October 2007.
Read the full interview here:
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