Well, the answer is, we don’t know. At present European Palm Pre owners are stuck behind their American compatriots, languishing in the Beta version of Palm’s App Catalog with only a fraction of the amount of apps our friends across the pond are enjoying. The reason? We don’t have access to paid apps.

The Pre in the UK is limited to only free apps which might sound like a good thing to smartphone users on a budget but does in fact rule out a huge percentage of the full app store. The most notable exclusions are the wave of 3D games that launched with the WebOS 1.3 update at the beginning of the year. With nearly 2000 apps available to US Pre owners and a paltry 482 in the UK app catalog, the gulf between the two regions is hardly minute.

But, this could all be set to change as Palm have confirmed that today is the day us lucky UK Pre owners will be getting the full app store with paid apps to boot. No word on what time we can expect this to roll out (our American friends are only just starting their working day) but judging by previous updates it could be any time up until this evening. Some eagle eyed users were able to spot an app with a price tag in the app store earlier this morning but this has since been removed. However, the Beta tag has disappeared permanently so this definitely looks like a step in the right direction.