MotionApps: The Company Behind Classic

by PalmWebOS.org on April 2nd, 2009
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classic_bannerWe’ve been enlightened about that mystery “Classic” icon and Palm has now confirmed that WebOS will include the PalmOS Classic emulator that will allow you to use your former favorite apps from your archaic Treo on your brand new Palm Pre. But we wanted to give you a little look into the app and company that is making it possible: MotionApps.

First of all, they claim that the same apps running on your Treo 700p will run TWICE as fast on WebOS with Classic. With 30,000+ Palm OS apps out there, many of them will be compatible with Classic and a full list is coming shortly. It will be available for Individual, Enterprise and Application Developers alike.

MotionApps was one of the first members of the Palm Selected Developers Group and started their mission to make the cleverest software for smartphones in 2003… the days of the Treo 180. That’s right, the freakin’ Treo 180:

treo-180

Since then the company has expanded to develop for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone and now WebOS and the Palm Pre. Here is a snippet of the Press Release the company put out in announcing classic:

Palm OS Emulator Application

Palm also announced that MotionApps (www.motionapps.com) is creating an emulator application that will allow most Palm OS applications to run on webOS devices. The application, called “Classic,” will be available for purchase when the Palm Pre™ phone becomes available from Sprint in the first half of 2009, and gives users peace of mind as they transition to Palm’s new webOS.

Since Palm OS applications running in Classic won’t be able to leverage core webOS functionality, Palm is working with partners to ensure that popular Palm OS applications are made available on the webOS platform and are optimized to take advantage of everything it has to offer. In the meantime, the MotionApps Classic application will allow customers who have invested in the Palm OS platform to use Palm OS applications they’ve grown to love and depend upon on their new webOS devices. “

We’re looking forward to other great things from the MotionApps team, especially the porting of their existing applications onto the WebOS platform – hopefully with a few customizations that really highlight and tap into the Synergy that WebOS offers.

Great work, MotionApps – we’ve got our eye on you!

4 Comments

  1. 1. kunrad wrote on April 8, 2009

    can’t wait to see palm pre :)

  2. 2. Palm Profile: Forced Customer Pre Training | Palm WebOS wrote on April 27, 2009

    [...] are not compatible with your Pre phone,” which, given the recent excitement surrounding the Classic Application by MotionApps, seems [...]

  3. 3. Screenshots of PalmOS Apps Running On WebOS | Palm WebOS wrote on April 29, 2009

    [...] when they heard WebOS would be able to run PalmOS applications courtesy of an application called Classic made by MotionApps. But since that announcement we haven’t seen or heard much more… until today! A [...]

  4. 4. david wrote on June 19, 2009

    Palm did NOT include this with webOS- you have to buy it for $30 (overpriced-look at the comparison prices for iPhone apps!) as an aftermarket application. It is also somewhat unstable, and frequent crashes seem to be relatively common. I think it is ridiculous, considering the number of legacy applications that will be orphaned for some time until ported to webOS, that this wasn’t included in the OS. I would not say this if there were a plethora of apps available for the Pre, but when it comes down to it, the Pre is very well designed hardware without adequate software. It certainly will improve over time, but for now Pre users are stuck looking at the >10,000 iPhone applications with envy.

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