Apps for MeeGo - how to use, submit & help evaluate applications

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Niels Breet has posted an introduction to "Apps for MeeGo" for users, developers and people willing to test apps:

We have been working on apps.formeego.org for a while. The idea is to have a community driven Apps catalog for open source applications. Created by the people who also contributed to maemo.org Downloads (More than 100M downloads and counting!), many of the concepts born there were brought along.

This site includes a community driven QA part, where you can test apps and fill in a simple score card about the app. Once a certain amount of positive reports have been made, the app will automatically go to the stable Apps site. Apps will also go through some automated tests, so we can prevent broken applications from entering the repositories.

Unfortunately, the site and processes weren't in place for the N9 launch. This has meant the Nokia Store has become the default place for developers wishing to ship applications for the N9 (and N950). Discoverability of applications is also easier with Nokia Store for users; with no central Application Manager on Harmattan, users have to go to a specific client to see the apps available to them.

As touched upon by Thomas Perl last week, fragmentation of the N9 experience is a big problem for a niche platform - one it can ill afford. The extra overhead for developers of targetting the mainstream Store, updating meta-data sites like n9-apps and also dealing with OBS for Apps for MeeGo is something your editor, as a developer, does not look forward to. Metrics such as download counts will also be fragmented, giving developers - and users - inconclusive statistics.

Hopefully, Apps for MeeGo will succeed - but your editor can't help feeling it might be too late. Especially since there won't be any other MeeGo devices for which it could host content.