It's no secret that Palm's been taking it niiiice 'n slow with their app strategy, whatever it is. Here's their next baby step: Ares, a browser-based, drag-and-drop development toolkit for making simple apps. It's a marginally good idea!
In a way, software written in Ares is the purest kind of web app: It's designed in a browser, written in web languages and rendered like a webpage. In another, it's not, because the tools packages these things like native apps. As weirdly hybrid as the results are, Palm reasoning is straightforward: They want to "help Web developers make the leap to becoming mobile developers." You know, by making web development into app development, even moreso that webOS and the Mojo SDK already do. Ok!
The tool will be available by the end of the year, Palm says, but it's not clear what effect it'll actually have. The hope is that it'll spur development for a platform that runs the risk of scaring would-be developers away with its limited user base. The fear is that by encouraging the development of nicely-wrapped web apps before they have a steady stream of regular apps, Palm is dooming the Pre and Pixi to wallow in a sea of $1 farts and spam. I'm taking bets, in the comments. [PC World]