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Back in February, Palm CTO Mitch Allen hosted the first webOS developer webcast, titled "Developing Applications for webOS: A Preview" (see a summary and video of the event). During the webcast, he went over the material in the first chapter of the upcoming Palm webOS book, including Stages, Scenes, UI Widgets, and more, and answered questions from developers during the Q&A period.

Today, Christian Sepulveda, VP of Business Development for Pivotal Labs, hosted a webcast today on Test / Behavior Driven Development (TDD/BDD) through Jasmine, a BDD framework for JavaScript. He was joined by Davis Frank, one of the developers at Pivotal Labs who has been working with the Pockets and Jasmine framework of their webOS apps. Over the course of the hour, he gave a brief intro to unit testing, an overview of Pockets and Jasmine, and unit testing in action.

Watch the full 55-minute webcast (in code-readable HD!)

For those unfamiliar, Jasmine is a unit test framework for JavaScript (not exclusive to webOS), but doesn't require a DOM. Pockets is a set of tools and libraries to facilitate webOS development, including a GUI test runner for webOS Jasmine testing. They have been using Pockets internally and for the pre-release SDK, and is set for a wider launch later this summer. Sepulveda then breifly described testing concepts and the difference between tests and specs.

For the demo, Sepulveda walked us through the code for testing a very basic Twitter app, used to search friends. Fast forward to 7:40 to get right to the demo. Those with basic knowledge of JavaScript, webOS and unit testing should find the webcast quite insightful. You can watch the full HD webcast above. After viewing the demo, how do you feel about the potential for unit testing in webOS, and if you're in the Early Access Program, have you had the opportunity to check out Pockets?

Screenshots from various stages of the testing process are below:

Full summary of the webcast Q&A after the break!

Palm and Sprint are continuing their ad campaign for the Palm Pre, most recently with a new TV commercial, the second spot featuring the "Flow" theme. While the new one is more low-key than the first commercial (which featured a sea of martial arts performers similar to the Beijing Olympics), it gives a short look at the webOS cards interface, while in a serene setting. While she is browsing the cards, she says "Bing, bing, bing", which (coincidentally?) is promoting Microsoft's new search engine, Bing. What do you think of the new TV spot?

As for Sprint's recent efforts, they were recently recognized for their Now Network Campaign, notes Precentral. Sprint took home the Golden Lion award, one of the world's top advertising prizes, at the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. In total, there were 208 finalists (from 2,205 entries) in the Cyber category. They also took home four Silver Lions and a Bronze Lion on the Digital Category, and were the only brand to take home multiple awards within a category. Sprint's advertising agency, Silverstein & Partners, was chosen as Interactive Agency of the Year. Watch the latest Now Network ad with the Palm Pre after the break.

For those interested in meeting other developers, sharing code, and getting an inside scoop on developing with the Mojo SDK, the first organized events have been scheduled in the East and West; Lower Manhattan, NYC and Palm Headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Spaces are limited, so if you live nearby it may be a great opportunity to start networking before PreDevCamp arrives on August 8th.

New York webOS Developers Meetup

Right around the corner is the NYC event, headed by Michael Prenez-Isabell, director of mobile development for BlueSwitch, NYC. The speaker for the first meeting (expect more events in the future) is Eric Marthinsen of Agile Commerce. His company created Flightview for the Pre, an airplane flight status tracker downloadable from the App Catalog. Marthinsen will be giving an overview of the development process, going over an app demo, and a discussing the challenges that a JavaScript webpage developer faces when transitioning to webOS and Mojo.

Date: Monday, July 13 at 7:00 PM

Sign Up

Sunnyvale Pre, Mojo, and webOS Meetup

For those in the West, you may be interested in the developer meetup happening at Palm Headquarters in a couple weeks. Organized by John Wyles, the event will feature Davis Frank from Pivotal Labs, maker of Pre apps Tweed and Associated Press (Pivotal Labs will also be hosting a webcast on July 14 that you can sign up for). An engineer at Palm will also be on hand to discuss the platform and development process. Spots are going fast, so if you want to get on the inside and meet other developers, now is your chance. Our own Ken will be attending the event.

Date: Tuesday, July 28 at 7:00 PM

Sign Up

A tipster has given details of the first "major" webOS update for the Palm Pre, which will bring the version up to 1.1. The previous, mandatory 1.04 update did little more than to close an install loophole, so Pre enthusiasts may have a lot more to look forward to this time. The information notes a timeline of 30 days, as well as hinting at new apps (TBD).

For existing apps, they plan to tighten up security issues by offering improved handling of digital certificates, as well as a much-needed overhaul of MS EAS security policies, including:

• IT initiated Remote wipe
• PIN/password of minimum length w/ complexity (numeric or alphanumeric)
• Device wipe with X number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock after X minutes of activity

With the increased security features, enterprise and corporate users may finally feel comfortable picking up a Pre. If Palm is serious about enterprise adoption, addressing all the security weaknesses on the device will give them a shot at attracting the corporate, Blackberry-toting crowd.

As for new apps, it's unsure at this time whether they will come in the form of first or third-party titles. Is there anything else you would like to see in the next update?

Precentral

UPDATE: The update was since confirmed during a press brief with Palm UK and O2, in which the Pre unit was found running version 1.1.0. Could this be an indication that the update is just around the corner for the rest of us?

UPDATE #2: Another screenshot (see right) confirms again that the new update is nearing. July 22nd is rumored to be the release date, and it will include improved battery performance, better UI animations, and more.

If you've never played Bejeweled or Zuma before, then you might still be stuck playing Snake on your old Nokia. Garth Chouteau, a senior director of Popular mobile software company PopCap Games discussed their future in an interview yesterday, confirming their plans to bring their line of addictive games to webOS and the Palm Pre. Here's what he had to say:

"We have plans to support the Pre, as well as Android. There are games in the works for those devices. But it is certainly a kind of splintering of the market in some ways. I guess what I would say is, we think about platforms or prospective platforms in a couple of ways. One is: is this device right for one or more of our games? Is this the right kind of device for our games? Will it be a fun experience, and frankly as fun as it is on other platforms? And also, what is the audience for this particular device? And then certainly, but certainly not insignificantly, what is the install base?"

This is good news for mobile gamers everywhere, and should give a boost to gaming interest on the Pre, which is already growing. Flash support is also expected to augment the webOS game selection when it comes to Pre later this year, while emulators in development such as for Playstation and MAME could potentially provide hours of fun on the go.

Pixels to Polygons

Fans of listening to internet radio on their Palm Pre will have reason to breath easy today. Pandora (one of the Pre launch partners) whose webOS internet radio app is top-rated on the App Catalog, has been under pressure by SoundExchange to hike their streaming fees to exuberant levels, essentialy forcing Pandora to start charging for their services or close down. They have been looking for a solution for some time now, but to no avail.

However, a deal was reached, in which SoundExchange reduced their per-song-per-listener fee by 40-50%, or collects 25% of total US revenue generated by Pandora; whichever is higher. To compensate, Pandora will now be putting a 40-hour / month listening cap on streaming music, or a $0.99 fee for unlimited listening for the month. So if you're a heavy listener, you may now have to dole out a buck.

Sounds like a good compromise, considering a month's worth of internet radio costs the same as a single song over iTunes. If you're a Pandora user, would you be willing to pay more for internet radio, should they ever hike their fees?

Precentral

 

Back in February, Christin Sepulveda, VP of Business Development for Pivotal Labs (one of the Pre launch partners), talked about webOS development. In the interview, he stated that even Mojo novices can "get productive quickly" in webOS, highlighting how Mojo used common tools and languages in JS and HTML already accessible to most developers.

To continue sharing his knowledge, Sepulveda has tapped O'Reilly to present a webcast next week, Tuesday July 14, on automated unit testing with the Palm Mojo SDK. Previously, Palm CTO Mitch Allen gave a webcast with O'Reilly on developing applications for webOS.

Unit tests are supported in webOS, and are useful in testing various program features using the compiler to compare output to reference values. This allows you to keep an eye on specific modules of the program which interface with the rest of the app, essentially building your app in smaller steps, and allowing you to change code without breaking other parts. The webcast will focus on Behavior/Test Driven Development (TDD/BDD) through Jasmine, a BDD framework for Javascript. A summary of the webcast is below:

In this webcast we'll:

• introduce BDD & Jasmine
• install Jasmine & add related code to the app to support BDD
• discuss how to write a failing test first, then add functionality to make a test pass
• develop a simple webOS application test first, with the Mojo SDK

Target Audience: Developers who are interested in developing webOS applications with the Mojo SDK.

Date: Tuesday, July 14th at 10 am PT
Price: Free
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes
To register: oreilly.com/go/palmmojo
Questions? Please send email to

Head over to the official site for more information and to register for the event.

Palm hasn't said much to the community since the Mojo SDK was leaked over a week ago; that is, until this past weekend, when Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach responded to questions as to why the bulk of developers still are not approved for the Early Access Program. So why the foot-dragging? Also, what criteria are they looking for to get into the program? Here's what he had to say:

The primary limitation we have today is the capacity of our developer area, which wasn’t built to support the number of developers who want access. That’s actually a good problem to have, and we have a team working on bulking up the infrastructure, too. There are some really interesting things just over the horizon here, but it takes time.

If you think about it, if we let too many people in too fast and everything does the fail whale, we’ll get yelled at and developers will give up on us. I realize that there are some developers who are tired of waiting — and I fully understand — but I hope they’ll come and take another look at us later when we finish the SDK up and get it out to everyone. If we mess up the SDK or the tools, we risk driving away lots of developers and convincing them not to come back. It’s a fun and challenging balancing act.

Our current admission policy is fairly simple: we’re accepting in applications based on how complete and detailed the applications were. I’ve broken that up into a few different piles of applications, and within each pile, we’re admitting them based on when they sent us the application. Right now, the most detailed applications are going in; when we finish that, we’ll grab the next set and do the same until everyone is in the program or we release the SDK to the public and end the early access program.

So looks like if you're applying, it's probably best to go through the application thoroughly, as the form asks for a summary your development background and to describe the great webOS app(s) you plan on creating (but better save plans for your fart app until later). Otherwise, all we can say is good luck, and know that everyone will have access to the SDK in good time, likely by summer's end.

Precentral