Homebrew Apps Trickling Out, but be careful

That didn't take long.  Not a single day after the broke the news that you can install homebrew apps without rooting your Pre and then posted the first homebrew app that you could install via email, a couple of homebrew apps have trickled out.

The first is a Tip Calculator from Jamie Zawinski that looks to work pretty well according to a couple of PreCentral.net readers.  The second could be more promising but also appears to be quite buggy, an improved ringtone/notification sound manager from Pimp My Pre.  Reading through the relevant forum thread here at PreCentral.net we see a few bugs and users noting that they can't delete/uninstall the app, though updates are promised.

We still are waiting to see if Palm is going to update webOS to close this particular loophole as it's pretty big and, truth be told, a little dangerous.  Sure, you still need to tap that link on the email to install homebrew apps, but there's not much in the way to confirmation dialogs when you do (i.e. none at all).  When it comes to homebrew, the mantra is "Buyer Beware."

That said, even if Palm does close the loophole, the folks at Pre Dev Wiki who discovered this method in the first place are confident that would-be homebrew aficionados will be able to find some way to keep their new apps loaded -- though Palm's mandatory webOS update policy might put a crimp on that. Let's just say we're happy that Palm has officially said they're going to allow apps to be sideloaded without need for the App Catalog and we look forward to finding out how that will work, hopefully around the time the official SDK is released later this summer.

In any case, the Pre Dev Wiki has some more detailed instructions on the homebrew-without-rooting method that might be worth checking out.

Thanks to everybody who tipped us on these!