Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

RIM Confirms Android Apps Will Run On Playbook, Through Intermediate Players

Posted by timothy on from the when-fruit-meets-robot-companion dept.

angry tapir writes "Research In Motion has announced that users of its PlayBook tablet will be able to run Android and Java applications. The PlayBook, which becomes available on April 19, will have two optional 'app players' that will provide run-time environments for BlackBerry Java apps and Android 2.3 apps. The players will let users download BlackBerry Java Apps and Android Apps from BlackBerry App World."

10 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Quality by exomondo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder how the quality of the BB ecosystem will go over time though, sure it's a boon to have access to all the Android apps but will people develop native PlayBook apps knowing that they could just develop an Android one that runs on the PB *and* on Android devices?

    1. Re:Quality by TD-Linux · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, when they support the 2.3 API (revision 10), they also support all API versions below that. In fact, Google encourages developers to target the lowest possible API level to support needed features, to maximize compatibility.

    2. Re:Quality by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 3, Informative
      It's a pity Slashdot linked to some pay-per-click summary instead of the actual press release.

      Developers will simply repackage, code sign and submit their BlackBerry Java and Android apps to BlackBerry App World. Once approved, the apps will be distributed through BlackBerry App World, providing a new opportunity for many developers to reach BlackBerry PlayBook users. Users will be able to download both the app players and the BlackBerry Java and Android apps from BlackBerry App World.

      At least for Android, it sounds pretty clear that they're cutting Google's store out of the picture.

  2. Sideloading by Nerdfest · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hope they're not afraid of a little competition and allow side-loading and other app stores. It's be a shame to see yet another device that you don't really own.

  3. This is a great move for RIM by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doing this gives Blackberry devices a chance to compete on merit instead of on how many apps they have. And it gives developers a unified target for app development -- make an Android app and it will run on both Android devices and Blackberries, which strengthens both platforms at the expense of their other competitors.

    This is what Nokia should have done.

    1. Re:This is a great move for RIM by Mr_Silver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doing this gives Blackberry devices a chance to compete on merit instead of on how many apps they have. And it gives developers a unified target for app development -- make an Android app and it will run on both Android devices and Blackberries, which strengthens both platforms at the expense of their other competitors.

      Seems like a poor idea to me as it means developers won't specifically target the playbook, instead relying on their existing Android developments.

      OS/2 suffered the same problem with it's Windows compatibility. No-one actually wrote anything for it as they just targetted Windows instead knowing that it running on OS/2 was an addition benefit.

      Whilst it may mean they get access to hundreds of applications immediately, the longer they leave it, the more dependent they are on maintaining compatibility with Android in order for their platform to succeed - and they could have got themselves into that mess far cheaper and easier by just releasing an Android tablet.

      --
      Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  4. java is a success story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since its introduction, it has taken the world by storm. Applications run perfectly anywhere.
    Write once. Run on Mac, Windows, Linux. Works great. Threads, networking. And it is
    also very secure as applications are sandboxed.

    Combined with XML, RMI, JB, servlets, SWING, ACID, JVM, WORA, API, JRE, JEE,
    JIT, JDK, CORBA, IIOP, JDBC, AWT, NIO, etc. it offers a powerful environment.
    And it is object oriented that is OO!

    And pretty much all universities teach it. Did you know even Oracle is partly written
    in Java, it has improved their product tremendously! All desktop computers com
    with Java preinstalled - working perfectly. And most applications these days
    are also in Java - if nothing else this should prove its superiority.

    Also java made everything simple. They banished unsigned types. Thread
    based networking, very slim runtime, easy web applets that are everywhere
    these days, everything is an Object, no memory corruption/crashes so even
    a monkey can write code (you don't need to know what you're doing
    to be a java programmer, isn't that great), take threads, so easy anyone
    is encouraged to add them into their application. Java code is also
    very easy to read but still very compact.

    The creators of Java did the industry a great service. I salute them!

  5. Clever by ieatcookies · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wise choice

  6. Let's wait for the benchmarks, shall we? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's possible Dalvik apps could run *faster* on the new Blackberry than on Android!

    QNX is an embedded RTOS that's allegedly light years ahead of Linux for certain things. If RIM have managed to port Dalvik to QNX minus the design choices of Google's Linux-fork, Dalvik could seem just as 'native' on QNX than the 'official' Android.

  7. Re:iOS app player by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can't copyright an API.