A blend of bad and good news for Palm Pre users, the bad one first as you’ve chosen. Your days of downloading free games and applications via App Catalog are numbered.

The good news now, Palm would be launching their long awaited App Catalog e-commerce beta in mid-September. Premium paid games and applications are on their way. Customers would have to use their credit cards to purchase those applications. 

The company on Tuesday sent out invites to developers to join the beta test by  submitting their applications along with descriptions and other details. 

For paid applications, Palm would retain 30% of the revenue and 70% goes to the developer same way as Apple operates their App Store. 

Apple took a whole year to launch their App Store after launching the first generation iPhone. That was a grand launch; and if that timing and planning is ideal for operating and maintaining online stores, Palm have jumped the gun. The Pre is still shy of three months into its launch. 

It’s just tempting to travel into the future to know how App Catalog would compare with the App Store.