Spades on the Palm Pre offers a version of this popular card game (which belongs to the same family as Bridge, and Hearts) on WebOS. It’s a multiplayer game with up to four players, but can also be played with just two players without compromising the gameplay too much. The app definitely needs more polish. The interface is unpleasant but functional once you get the hang of what goes where. To its credit, the cards are clearly visible and don’t feel particularly crowded. About a finger-width’s vertical space at the bottom is dedicated to advertising. The ads usually contain a single icon at the left followed by text. Though I can imagine this format changing in the future.

This Palm Pre app comes with landscape mode which makes it easier for you to read and follow things. The built-in computer opponent is not very smart at present, but future updates will probably increase the intelligence in the algorithm to offer at least a little more challenging gameplay. Another major problem is that this app appears to be a significant battery drain – at least more so than a simple card app should be. Overall, this is a relatively unpolished app with an unsophisticated computer opponent and is a tad too heavy on the battery. You may find it easy to overlook these shortcomings if you are a fan of the game itself, but the casual player may find it useful to wait for updates to bring improvements.


