One of the major reasons why the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre continues to have a lack of third-party applications is because the App Catalog and accompanying developer kit continues to be in a limited beta. As a result, when the handset launched two weeks ago, there was 18 app, and today there’s only about 12 more.

But the company says that will change by the end of summer when it opens up the Palm Pre Mojo SDK to all developers, reports AppScout. In the meantime, Palm wrote on a developer blog that it also plans to ramp up their early access program, providing access to thousands more developers. The demand is clearly there. Already, developers, or you might call hackers, have figured out how to make applications without the SDK. Palm’s response to the rogue developers is fairly tame: “We recognize that some developers will experiment in ways that cross official boundaries, but we believe that our formal offerings—and community efforts built around those offerings—will provide the best experience for the vast majority of webOS developers and users.”

• A Week Later: Why Palm’s Pre Still Lags On Apps