Palm’s new smartphone is due for release on Sunday and has already been spotted in Wal-Mart stores. But the Pixi’s debut is doing little to calm a barrage of criticism of the company’s tactics.

It’s well-established that the vast majority of cellphone applications offered for sale make a pittance. But some firms are pulling in a genuine fortune with the potential for even more thanks to an Apple policy change.

Both Facebook and Pandora are now available in Android app editions, which show some of the limitations and strengths of the system. The releases come as a new calculation shows that more than 10,000 apps are now available on Android handsets.

The price of the Palm Pre is reportedly dropping by 25 percent in an apparent attempt to boost sales. The reports come as leaked copies of a software update show Palm may be considering remote deletion of apps.

Facebook now has 65 million “active users” accessing the site through mobile devices. That audience has tripled this year and gives a substantial boost to Facebook Connect, which has just launched in mobile form.

Samsung is joining the growing number of firms offering an app store to handset owners. However, it’s European only for now and it’s questionable if the firm will ever bring it to the U.S. market.

Microsoft has launched a platform aimed at bringing smartphone-style apps to basic cellphones. OneApp will allow Java enabled phones to run popular apps with just 30KB of space.

Microsoft has told mobile app developers their products are worth more than 99 cents. It’s a clear knock at the pricing structure of Apple’s App store.

An application developer has complained Palm’s recently released tools for developing apps for the Pre handset don’t give enough access for producing quality games. Ironically the complaints come as it emerged that Palm is looking for an engineer to produce frameworks for game development on the device.

Palm has opened up its Pre app development scheme to the public after what its calling a successful test period. But one of the most useful features of the handset, easy synching with iTunes, is no longer working after an Apple update.