At Pandora, maker of the Pandora Internet radio service now used on the Apple iPhone, the company has had the Pre SDK since December, said Tom Conrad, Pandora CTO. The company likely has been able to get to the front of the line because of its success on iPhone, Conrad surmised, adding the company also has the device itself.

"It's a phenomenal phone," Conrad said. "I'm certainly a fan of everything Apple's done with the iPhone, but the Pre is just a really, really great phone as well," Conrad said. Palm integrates data sources from around the Web with webOS, and users can move seamlessly between applications, he said.

The Mojo SDK itself can be plugged in to the Eclipse platform and also be used with a simple text editor, Conrad said. "You can get a developer [who is] familiar with Web development and get them productive in a matter of days," he said.

Another developer who has not been able to get the SDK was not upset.

"Earlier may be better but it's no good if the tool is not ready. As a programmer, I'm pretty sympathetic about the problems of getting something out the door," said developer Peter Wayner, an InfoWorld contributing editor. "Plus if the phone is not shipping, what good would the SDK do me?"