Palm Ares: Browser-Based Mobile Phone SDK

December 18th, 2009 | by LaSean Smith

Palm’s new Ares SDK lets you build mobile applications for the Palm Pre. The core development environment is web-based and there is plenty of drag and drop goodness. This thing is so accessible it made think. Does developer friction (on a device people actually want) actually increase opportunity for software vendors?

Palm will likely get a rash of (low quality) apps out of Ares. And from Palm’s perspective that is a positive short-term outcome. But I wonder if this makes a platform lose some of shine over the long run. Let’s look to the other side of the spectrum as an example. I personally can’t create an app using XDK – the pro SDK for developing Xbox games. There’s friction. Friction in the learning curve, tools acquisition, distribution channel, talent costs, marketing budgets. Lots of places. And in some weird way all of that convinces me that $60 for a new game isn’t such a bad deal. That brings me back to Palm’s new browser-based mobile SDK. Will this environment seed the perception that apps on the Palm aren’t worth even $0.99? Customer expectations could become unrealistic. Because if an app is too simple the consumer will say, “Hey! I could just build that myself”. Even the most simple fart making, flash light shining iPhone app has lots of friction in the programming language, tools and publishing process. It’s worth questioning how much that keeps consumers from becoming sellsumers on the iPhone/iTouch.

The Bottom Line: Brands and web properties do not need to depend on app sales (traditional software licensing) to stay in business. For them a client application runtime with low friction is a fantastic thing. However, I question the feasibility of professional software developers building a sustainable business off standalone client apps when the dev environment is too accessible. We’ll see.