With the impending webOS update (1.5?) appearing to have a lot to do with PDK apps, we thought it would be fitting to talk a developer that has been working with Palm and the early access PDK so we could learn a lesson or two about it.

Aaron Ardiri, from Mobile1Up, who recently presented as a guest at Palm’s Developer Days sits down with us figuratively and answers some of our questions.

Can you tell us about your company and your development background?

Mobile 1UP was created in 2008, specifically focusing on iPhone application development – however the founders have been doing mobile application development since 1999, working on almost every mobile platform out there – we had wrote a number of Palm OS applications back in the day.

Some of the old Palm users may remember titles like Lemmings, LodeRunner, Pocket Mini Golf, Liberty (GameBoy Emulator) and Atari Retro (Atari 2600 Emulator) – we have worked on a ton of stuff over the years, definitely not new on the block : )

Tell us about your games/apps for webOS

Mobile 1UP focused on a niche of game types known as “game and watch” based on the LCD handheld games created by Nintendo in the early 1980′s – these defined the foundation for the GameBoy  handheld which has eventually evolved to modern day consoles like the Microsoft XBox and Sony PlayStation. Cronk; our other popular title is a Zuma / Luxor type game we did in collaboration with Cronk Software.

Tell us about your experience using the PDK

As a veteran Palm OS developer, we were very excited to hear about the PDK availability – writing applications in Mojo wasn’t our “kettle of fish” as this requires a different mindset as a programmer – effectively writing web applications instead of native applications. The PDK provides the bridge we needed to support the webOS platform.

As a developer in Sweden, it was very difficult to get a Palm Pre device for development purposes – emails to Palm went unanswered, buying from eBay ended up with a useless toy being sent (and, fighting with PayPal) – but in the end we ordered a Palm Pre from Germany unlocked. *phew*

Palm however has done an excellent job with the PDK – by providing SDL and Open GL ES support means that a large number of existing applications can be migrated to the webOS platform with minimal changes, instead of having to build something specific to the platform. It took us only five hours to have all our games running on the webOS platform – as we already designed our applications to be cross platform and mapping our internal setup to SDL was very easy for us to do.

Are you working on any other projects and if so can we get a sneak peak

We only received our Palm Pre a month ago, since then we have migrated all ten of our applications to the platform, presented at the Palm Developer Day and had some vacation in between. To top it off, Mobile 1UP is a hobby so we have had a full time job distraction at the same time.

Mobile 1UP is building a team of developers to start working on some unique ideas and concepts that are not specifically webOS specific as we do a lot of cross platform development. At this point we cannot disclose the details – but watch this space! : )

What take away from Palm’s Developer Day has you most excited?

Networking – a huge value of the old Palm Source developer conferences, it is great that Palm has taken the steps to organize an event like this – it is a step in the right direction! I seriously hope we see more of them – I traveled from Sweden (lucky to make it because of the ash cloud) to join it!

How did your guest speech go at Palms Developer Day?

I believe it went well – but you would have to ask the audience : )

I did a basic introduction to game programming using SDL within the PDK; however, I realized it was pretty boring just to go through slides – so I took it up a notch. A lot of presentations talked about what was coming, so I asked one of the audience members for one of the free Palm Pre Plus devices that were handed out and decided to get hands on!

I installed Cronk onto the device – showed how you can remote into the device and check the memory levels, processor usage and show that what I was dealing with was real and not just made up for marketing purposes. I was also sure to throw in a joke or two : )

I look forward to seeing the video recording of the presentation myself! : )

Does the news of the HP acquisition make you feel better about working on webOS projects?

I think it is the best news for the platform.

HP has the marketing and sales capacity that can really take webOS to the next level – making it a serious competitor against the iPhone and Android operating systems. The iPhone is locked in chains (restrictive) while Android has been let loose which is quickly causing fragmentation issues – this acquisition will allow a middle ground to be defined which I believe will be the success point moving forward.

Anything else you would like the community to know about your company or developing for webOS that you would like to share?

Mobile 1Up believes in being part of and contributing to the community; we do not just write applications – we also want to be involved in the discussions, help other developers and seeing the platform go where it has the potential to go!

Mobile 1Up also offer professional consulting services – if someone has an idea and they want to see it be done, yet have the ability to do it on any platform they should contact us as this is what we do best!

I’d like to thank Aaron for taking the time to answer our questions and for those interested in checking out his games head over to http://www.mobile1up.com/, search in the app catalog for Cronk or GW Series, or hit these links:

Cronk

GW Series

[photo taken by Lisa Brewster, Palm employee]

Tags: gaming, pdk