Got a BlackBerry Playbook? If the ales figures are anything to go by, probably not – but hey, maybe you’ve got a friend or a boss who was brought low by a Staples salesman. If that’s the case, be sure and tell him or her that the handful of apps huddling together for warmth in RIM’s app store will soon have some welcome company. The company’s Developer Relations team posted today that the long, long-awaited OS 2.0 update will hit in February, with the BlackBerry Runtime for Android included in the package. It’s almost as welcome as a real email client. The service has been in closed beta for some time now.
The deadline for submitting apps to RIM to be included in the launch database is February 6th, meaning that the update and app repository should be available shortly thereafter. It isn’t as easy as dropping an SDK onto the Playbook’s flash storage; a little work on the developer side of things is required. But compared to building an app from scratch it’s a breeze, thanks to tools provided by RIM itself to ease the porting process. In order to be considered by RIM, developers will need to remove all usage of the word “Android” from the app, refrain from referring to the Market, setting the requirement to “BlackBerry Playbook” (hah!) and signing the package digitally.
All this work to get Android apps on the PlayBook is fascinating, considering how much RIM is trying to distance themselves from everyone’s favorite green robot. Just last week their shiny new CEO (career expectancy: 8 months) said that they had no intention of releasing hardware that runs Android, claiming that “all Android phones are the same”. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.
[via SlashGear]
What do you think?
Blackberry who
Ass- your android tablet cannot compare to the BlackBerry PlayBook (you sound like an ass). Your phone batteries suck; your so call keyboard suck (fo_king touch screen sucks): your whole android theme phone tablet sucks. I’ll put my BB and BB-Playbook up to any test and buss your ass cause you and your phone crew SUCKS!!!!!!!
I’m loving my Galaxy tab 10.1. you obviously never heard of Swype. don’t type fool. Swype to text. Long live Android.
Does this mean the BB is now a usable item? Can I now put
usable Apps on to this brick? Its only £169 may get one and if it turns out to
be cr*p I can use it to hold a door open…..
lol blackberry.
typed on an Acer A100
I do not agree the playbook is awesome and chep at this moment
Go BlackBerry – Ya Hooooo Playbook!
love an ipad3,dnt like bb…
I own a blackberry playbook! It’s an amazing system I just wish blackberry would be more open minded with the apps, I mean let’s face it app world for bb is horrible. I think that they are being too stubborn. Plus I really want a d/a/m/n pandora app!!!