Palm has been sending out e-mails to the webOS developer community to let them know that not only are they waiving the $50/app submission fee to get into the Catalog, they’re refunding all previous fees to their respective developers. At last count, there were 2,000 apps in the catalog, meaning the refunds will cost Palm a little over $100,000 – mere pennies, especially since HP acquired them. Still, excellent work Palm – it’s tough to compete with the likes of the iPhone and Android environments, and showing some good will towards future and past developers is a good start. There is, however, worry that this could open the floodgates to spammy, low-quality apps, but really, Palm’s App Catalog could use some fattening up one way or the other.
Premium apps just went live internationally a few months ago, so there’s still plenty of growing to do. With little to no barrier to entry, maybe the webOS catalog will start gaining some steam. There’s a pretty sweet half-0ff sale which will certainly help, and if not, there’s always a vibrant homebrew community that makes and shares apps outside of the official channel.
[via PreCentral]