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Home»BlackBerry News»News & Rumors

New Demo Video Showing off the Android App Player on the BlackBerry PlayBook!

by Kevin Michaluk on 5 May 2011 02:10 PM
14
 
[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

On Tuesday we posted a video demo of Android Apps running on BlackBerry that was given during the BlackBerry World 2011 keynote. Getting into a bit more detail and giving us another look, RIM's blog has posted a followup video which again walks through the premise behind Android app support on BlackBerry and shows off the Android App Player in action. Check out the video above and be sure to drop a comment with your thoughts!

Filed Under: News & Rumors; Tags: Android Apps on BlackBerry, BBWorld2011, BlackBerry Playbook
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14 Comments

Posted by redantz Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

interesting

 
 
Posted by lazydogrex Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

Impressive! Add an App Store player as well and I'll really be impressed!! I know, that'll never happen. It's fun thinking about a platform like the PlayBook that would do both however.

 
 
Posted by codemaker Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

I actually think that actually would be possible, although performance might not be adequate.

 
 
Posted by PN009 Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

Kevin - were you able to gather if the android running there was based on the honeycomb version ? or was the app based on 2.3 gingerbread for mobile?

 
 
Posted by codemaker Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

It is 2.3/gingerbread.

 
 
Posted by PN009 Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

@ codemaker - thanks

 
 
Posted by kameleon Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

The one concern I have is this: Has anyone else noticed that you could not have multiple apps open at the same time? When they opened one app it "replaced" the other instead of opening to the side of the current one. What's up with that!?!?

Also noticed the same thing for the native email/calendar.

 
 
Posted by pkcable Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

It's basically a question of system resources most likely.  The Android player is probably VERY resource heavy, and you probably could not run more than 1 at a time, a second app would mean a second player and double the resources.    I believe the way the player works is that it actually runs android in a window (or box) and then the app run on top of it.   A second app would need a second running copy of android, in a separate window/box.  It would overload even the mighty playbook.  Actually it MIGHT be able to do 2 apps, but probably not for long, and not very well!  lol

 
 
Posted by volemek Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

OK people keep giving the same response you have. What i would like to know is if it is running the actual android 2.3 OS, shouldn't it be able to run two apps in the same (for lack of a better word) window? I have an android phone and they do multi tasking (switch tasking is probably more accurate) why would this app not do the same thing?

 
 
Posted by Skeevecr Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

Hopefully they can refine it in the future so that you can load multiple apps into the same player or something like that to save on resources, but in the meantime it is still very nice.

 
 
Posted by icanhasbrendan Thursday, May 05, 2011 385 days ago

Multitasking as mentioned above is a huge unanswered question. curious to see would applications that have deeper OS integration and how that will interact with the framework outside or within the player.
hopefully RIM releases enough hardware APIs so that things like location and BT work within the player. this might have already been announced not sure.

as an android user one thing i noticed that was missing in this video was mention of menu command/key. the status bar back key is all well and good but will we be able to use context and option menus built into the app? will we use the PB gesture to call up those menus or will they add a second button to the status bar? hopefully by gesture for uniformity within QNXOS.

definitely makes a PB a more intriguing buy for sure.

EDIT: spoke too soon. just watched the other video. menu question solved. big points to the PB team for making the menu call uniform with the rest of the PB.

 
 
Posted by Gamesdmc3 Friday, May 06, 2011 384 days ago

I home they bring this to the new blackberry smartphones coming out

 
 
Posted by Pearl9100 Saturday, May 07, 2011 383 days ago

this is great for rim. i hope they bring it for blackberry eventually. that way, people who want millions of crap apps can enjoy them.

people on android central arent that happy with this.

 
 
Posted by TabletinaMinute Friday, Aug 12, 2011 286 days ago

I always tht this was a cool feature that they were going to add but now that I have a PlayBook I can't wait! This would really help the tablet be more useful.