Palm WebOS Development?

I was watching my twitter stream via HootSuite tonight when Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) posted that he got a free Palm Pre and a O’Reilly book on Palm WebOS development and that while he posted his EffinTC* disclaimer he also mentioned that he didn’t want it as he wasn’t going to give up the iPhone.

Now, I have wanted to get my paws on a Palm Pre since they were announced as I would like to learn a bit about the WebOS and see how to develop for it. I have done Windows and Web development before and also some Windows Mobile development too (as Microsoft did give me a “PocketPC” device about 6 years ago and I did some work for a company utilizing WinMo in the field.)

So, I thought I would ask ”@Scobleizer Can I has palm Pre and O’Reilly dev book, please? (Figure since i can’t get a job, I might as well learn Palm WebOS Dev)”

He replied “@radmoose will you build a Pre app for @building43 ? If so the Pre is yours!”

I said “@Scobleizer I would give it a good shot. Just give me some time to grok the Pre, the Dev book and get into it.”

And that is how it all began.

In the next week I am guessing I will be the owner of a Palm Pre and O’Reilly book on Palm WebOS development. I have already registered at the Palm Dev site so I hope to get up to speed soon.

I have no idea what my App for “Building 43″ will be but it will have a couple of ‘features.’ First, it will be ‘open-source’ and ‘free’ (although I am not sure exactly what license Palm is preferring right now.) Second, the code isn’t going to be the best stuff you have EVAR seen. It will be functional, open, and will hopefully give others incentive to write as they will say “I can do better than that!”  If you can, please do.

If you have an idea or twelve, please feel free to share. I can’t promise I will make the most awesome WebOS app known, but I will consider any and all ideas.

I am considering a couple games that I have done on other platforms.  No, nothing as complex as Pooyan or Moon Shuttle, I was thinking more like RoShamBo aka Rock,Paper,Scissors but that is not in sync with ‘Building43,” so I will hold off. (RoShamBo SMS  requires a backend server and doesn’t really go well into OpenSource.) Oh, and it won’t be a Flash App. I haven’t done any work within Flash in awhile.

Just wish me luck, point me in the right direction, and again, please share any ideas you may have. =)

* Note: EffinTC was my comment about the new FTC rules of disclosure for ‘bloggers.’  (I’ll save my comments about that for another post and here is link to my Amazon Wishlist.) =P