MotionApps, the company behind the PalmOS emulator ‘Classic’, has decided to stop development and sales of their app immediately. According to their blog, the decision was based upon the removal of Classic’s ROM in webOS 2.0, which is necessary for it to work.
The company issued the following statement:
We are sad to announce that Palm has removed Classic’s ROM from the new webOS 2.0 device ROM which will result in Classic not working if utilized with Palm’s new webOS 2.0.
This is contrary to our agreement with Palm and was done without our approval or consent. Based on this action, MotionApps will immediately stop selling Classic. However, as a courtesy to our clients, we will continue to support existing Classic customers on webOS 1.x for the immediate future.
Be that as it may, we believe in PalmOS and we want to do what we can to help Palm succeed in their future endeavors. So we decided to hand over the entire Classic source code and all of our accompanying IP to Palm so that Palm can do what they want to do with Classic and make it available with webOS 2.0.
Palm now has all the pieces to manage and control Classic’s future.
Thank you all who supported us along the way and who love PalmOS the way we do.
MotionApps Team
The onus on supporting ‘Classic’ now falls in the hands of Palm. webOS 2.0 is a major upgrade, but owners of ‘Classic’ might find themselves on the fence if there is no support for their legacy PalmOS apps.
How about you? Something more important that Diddlebug has you hooked on Classic and stop you from upgrading to webOS 2.0 until there is ‘Classic’ support.
Maybe means HP/Palm is now thinking to invite to those developers who have not made their new version for webOS yet , but still on Palm OS,to summit a brand new webOS version.
As a medical professional who used Epocrates with classic on a daily basis, I definitely won’t upgrade unless classic for webOS 2.0 arrives or, better yet either full Epocrates for webOS arrives, or until I change to Lexi-Comp
Palm would be better off to encourage developers who haven’t made the jump to WebOS to do it, than to continue to support older apps. Give them some sort of subsidy/grant to help them make the switch.