Palm Pre App Catalog Hits 1M Downloads

The Palm Pre, the world's first webOS device, went on sale in the United States on June 6. With it Palm launched a corresponding mobile software channel, the Pre App Catalog, which already boasts a number of great applications. Earlier this week, Medialets, a mobile advertising and analytics firm, released App Catalog metrics that suggest Palm's new app store hit the 1M downloads mark on June 24, just 18 days after its launch.

That's impressive when you consider the fact that those millions application downloads can be attributed to just 150,000 Pres sold. That's an average of more than six app-downloads per device and 33,333 thousand total downloads per application, according to Medialets, with a download-low of 2,400 and a high of 114,000.

It's even more notable with some additional context. For example, the Palm Pre/webOS software developer's kit (SDK), dubbed Mojo, which provides developers with the tools necessary to create webOS apps, isn't even publically available yet. Developers using the Mojo SDK are participants in Palm's "early access program," and have likely signed away all sorts of freedoms in exchange for access to the tools. In other words, developers using the Mojo SDK for Pre are currently doing so according to a set of (strict) Palm rules.

Palm plans to release the SDK by the end of summer, but until then, it's up to the company who can and who cannot build Pre apps for distribution via App Catalog. Also developers who sign Palm's Mojo SDK non-disclosure agreement (NDS) can't talk about the SDK to anyone. They can't share feedback or best practices.

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