Don’t Be Scared: How to Move Your Life from Treo or Centro to Your Pre (Part 2)

[Part Two of a two-part series]

In Part One, we discussed how to move your data files — documents, MP3s, video files, PIM data –from your old Palm device to your new Palm Pre. We also discussed which new Palm Pre apps can do the work of some old Palm OS apps. You can read that post here.

Today in Part Two, we’ll discuss how to run some of your old, familiar Palm OS apps on your Pre — and how to get them installed there!

Run Palm OS apps on your Pre
Anyone with treasured third-party Palm OS apps should check out MotionApps Classic. It’s a third-party Palm OS emulator that will let you run old programs at about twice the native speed of a Treo 700p! Classic can also run in the background like any other webOS app—meaning you can open a Palm OS app, shrink the emulator-plus-app combo to a card, move it aside, and then start another task in webOS. Very cool.

Which old Palm apps are compatible with MotionApps Classic?

MotionApps Classic

MotionApps is constantly updating its application compatibility list, a task that will continue for a long time, given the thousands of Palm OS apps out there. Some Palm OS apps that work in Classic include Bejeweled 2, Pocket Tunes, Kinoma Player, Oxford Dictionary, Agendus, SplashID (one of my favorites), SplashPhoto, Pocket Quicken, Astraware Sudoku, eReader, and Google Maps. Epocrates, a medical data tool used by thousands of medical professionals, will also work.

A notable incompatible app at this writing is Slingplayer Mobile.

Moving your apps to Classic
Using a USB cable, you can drag any PRC and PDB files over to the new device. You should follow PreCentral’s advice and rename your current Palm OS backup folder to something else. Then, HotSync your old Palm OS device. This way, the system will create a brand-new backup directory that contains only the latest apps that are actually in use. Then plug in your Pre, open the Classic folder, and copy programs and needed data from the old device’s backup folder into the Pre’s Classic folder.

Note that apps inside Classic cannot interact with apps on the Pre/webOS, so you won’t be able to get sneaky and sync up your PalmOS contacts with your Pre’s contacts.

What if your software is HotSync-dependent?
The Classic emulator contains a utility that lets you use an arbitrary HotSync ID to get any Palm OS software running that needs one. Essentially, you can “clone” your older Palm OS device on the Pre—without needing to buy any of your third-party apps all over again.

There’s one catch: HotSync itself doesn’t work in Classic. This could blow you out of the water with some apps.

Knowledge is power. Now, armed with the information you have just learned, you have broken away from fear, and embraced the renewed confidence that knowledge brings. Go get that Pre!