RIM's PlayBook to run Android apps
Our love knows no bounds
Research-In-Motion will square up to Apple, Google and Hewlett-Packard with a tablet that runs apps built for Google's popular Android platform.
On Thursday, RIM said it plans to deliver what it called an "app player" for its PlayBook tablet that will provide an environment capable of running Android 2.3 applications. An app player is also planned for running BlackBerry Java apps.
The environments will mean PlayBook users can download Android and BlackBerry Java apps from BlackBerry App World to run on the PlayBook, scheduled for release on April 19. Contacted by The Reg, RIM did not explain how the environments are built or will operate. Unveiling the PlayBook last fall, RIM said it was working on a "next generation" Java virtual machine.
The move is part of an effort to expand the PlayBook's application ecosystem, the company said in a statement.
The news confirmed rumors that RIM planned to support Android, but this is not support in its purest sense of the word. And it does not mean RIM will immediately leapfrog device and apps-marketplace rivals.
The PlayBook's app player won't run apps from Google's own Android Market. Instead, a RIM spokesperson told The Reg that Android apps will have to come through its own BlackBerry App World.
RIM's decision to only let Android apps download and run on the PlayBook from its own market will mean that while devs are coding for Android 2.3, they'll have to abide by RIM's rules to gain access to the market and devices.
Google's Android Market is estimated to be the second most populated apps market today, with more than 250,000 apps, coming in behind Apple's App Store, which boasts 350,000. HP's webOS app store has just 6,000 apps, and while RIM claims 20,000 apps in the BlackBerry App World, these are for existing BlackBerry devices - not the PlayBook.
To scoop up more devs, therefore, RIM is targeting gaming fiends. It said that it will release an SDK enabling application development on Tablet OS, the micro-kernel based operating system that powers the PlayBook.
RIM also announced that Ideaworks Labs and Unity Technologies will run on the PlayBook. Ideaworks makes Airplay, a C/C++ SDK for building apps on mobile. It currently runs on iOS, Android, Symbian, webOS, and Windows Mobile 6.x. Unity Technologies delivers tools and a rendering engine for building 3D games for iOS and Android.
To further attract devs, RIM also announced that the BlackBerry Tablet OS Native Development Kit (NDK) will hit open beta by the summer. It will be demonstrated at BlackBerry World between May 3 and 5 in Orlando, Florida. The NDK has been in alpha testing.
The NDK will let devs build high-performance, multi-threaded, native C/C++ applications using GNU tool chains. "Developers can create advanced 2D and 3D applications and special effects by leveraging programmable shaders available in hardware-accelerated OpenGL ES 2.0," the company said.
NDK will use the QNX POSIX library, "easily integrate" device events like gesture and touch, and integrate Tablet OS with the Eclipse C/C++ Development Tools project to work with other tools plug ins. EIM's Tablet OS is based on technology from QNX, which it acquired last year. ®
COMMENTS
GO64
I think it was more of a numbers game, why program for the c128 when you could program for the c64 and it would run on a c128 as well. It also didn'y help that Commodore kept selling the c64 as well, putting the c128 in a kind of no-mans land between the Amiga and the c64. Acorn had the same problem with there BBC+ range.
Also it seems the emmulator is a "will ship sometime later, maybe june" product.
There is a problem
Isn't android 2.3 a phone optimized os while version 3 is optimized for tablets? So they promise version 2.3 compatibility while v 3 will ship/shipped to device partners.
In fact this could be a reason why Google proved Steve Jobs right with their v 3 policy.
This is also a bad decision to begin with. If a person did choose your QNX/Java device, he rejected android way. Just like "GO64" killed C128 (commodore 8 bits) this will really hurt their developer scene. Mobile apps are really complex and if there is a way to ship already developed code, companies won't bother to code for your native platform.
I am also tired of head counting application markets, lots of "apps" are plain junk, html pages packaged.
Yeah but
If the device has an android emulator, why not write your app to the emulator? Then you can target your blackberry if you so wish without having to write from scratch to support regular android devices.
Of course I'm assuming the emulator is up to snuff and not some heap of crap that doesn't work properly. That is a distinct possibility of course. Blackberry could port Dalvik and much of the support APIs over QNX or whatever their kernel is because they're open source and get a decent experience.
The OS shouldn't matter
If I'm writing Java apps I really shouldn't give a damn what OS is underneath. Linux, Windows or even QNX. The same holds for Android too - it might be Linux now but if Google wanted they could whip out Linux and shove BSD or QNX in there. In app land the app should be largely ignorant of the OS.
What matters is the APIs. I see no reason that Blackberry could produce an API for Android, or implement Dalvik + Android's APIs in their own device.
I'd add that Blackberry is in a bit of a bind here. Android is becoming dominant. If they force devs to choose between the platform, then many of them will follow the user base. Of course if they implement the same APIs, they may hasten their own problems. Same thing happened with OS/2 when it chose to implement Windows 3.1 support. It seemed like a good idea but probably wasn't in hindsight.
As for Android 3.0, I expect they'll release the source. I would not be surprised if the source has not been released immediately as a combination of factors a) to give partners a lead before a bunch of Chinese OEMs turn up with clones, b) to give their lawyers time to look over the source for violations, c) to fix up any kludges, security holes etc. before exposing the OS to scrutiny, d) to do what they said and merge 2.x / 3.x into one trunk without the hassle of a code drop.
All of these are likely and plausible. I expect the source will turn up and for Google's sake the sooner the better.
