RIM Blackberry Playbook to Access Android Apps in QNX? Will it work? What will experience be like?

Question

I am trying to figure out how feasible Blackberry's rumored intent to have the Playbook tablet access the Android App store will be.

There have been several news/blog reports on this matter, but i haven't seen any feedback from the app developer community on this forum regarding what the experience will be like for Playbook users, whether apps would need to be altered by developers going forward to accommodate for the Playbook, what Google and Blackberry would have to do to ensure that the user experience is seamless.

From an app developer's perspective, I imagine this is a huge homerun, as it opens up sales opportunities to Blackberry customers. However, there are likely risks of alienating some users if the experience isn't the same as one would get on, say, a Galaxy Tab or the Motorola Xoom.

Here is an article on the topic: http://www.slashgear.com/blackberry-playbook-android-app-support-coming-in-2h-2011-tip-insiders-11132674/

What do app developers at large think about QNX facilitating this?

Answer 1

Actually at the moment PlayBook does not support even Java apps written for Blackberry smartphones. IMHO It's too early to talk about Android support.

Answer 2

The Android App Player in BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 (based on QNX) on BlackBerry Playbook works quite all right.

I took advantage of the 'Free Playbook for Android developers' promotion http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/02/latest-blackberry-playbook-tablet-offer-for-android-developers/ myself and ported a simple Android app to the Playbook. I am happy to say that I have already received the Playbook and I love it.

The 'porting' process was very simple in my case. I only needed to change the application's icon (it needs to be 86x86 for the Playbook), adjust layout for the bigger screen (my Android app wasn't optimized for tablets) and digitally sign and package the app to BlackBerry's .bar format. It was all very straightforward.

There are some limitations on what can be ported to the Playbook, first of all the Android apps cannot use any native code (no Android NDK):

http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/blackberry/android-app-player-for-the-blackberry-playbook-wont-be-as-good-as-you-thought/

Android apps need to be repackaged and submitted to BlackBerry App World, the Playbook users cannot just go to Android Market and download whatever they want. However, there are ways to run Android apps other than those available in the AppWorld, one just need to put the device into development mode, no rooting is necessary:

http://crackberry.com/how-sideload-android-apps-playbook-os-v20-use-android-app-player

As far as the user's experience is concerned, the first time you run an Android app on Playbook it takes quite long for the Dalvik virtual machine to initialize, but then the app runs fast and opening subsequent Android apps is fast too - clearly the Dalvik process stays in memory. Playbook doesn't have a 'Menu' physical button, so you get to the app's menu by swiping down from the top of the screen. There is also no 'Back' button, so instead they provided a virtual one near the bottom of the screen.