News - BlackBerry PlayBook to support Android apps

[HEXUS]

A new ‘app player’ will allow Android 2.3 apps to run on RIM’s tablet.

Read more.

[miniyazz]

Smart move - I think it's a bigger deal than he's making out.

[cheesemp]

Very good idea. I was suggesting this for meego but makes just as much sense here. I expect it might well reduce the number of direct apps but the bonuses far out weight this.

This is also a win for Android as its now target one platform - get another for free!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Good move IMHO and hopefully the phones will also support Android apps too.

[cheesemp]

Just noticed its 2.x phone apps only. Hope they get 3.0 layer sorted out quickly as well - otherwise its only a minor gain and more about the numbers as in we have X00,000 apps rather than actually having useful apps....

[spoon_]

Good move - they can take the 100 apps available on 3.0 and add few of their own to make it 150 maybe?

[Scott B]

Just noticed its 2.x phone apps only. Hope they get 3.0 layer sorted out quickly as well - otherwise its only a minor gain and more about the numbers as in we have X00,000 apps rather than actually having useful apps....

That's the point, I think: RIM wants the really sexy tablet-optimised apps to be written in its own platform, but if you really need to have thousands to choose from, here are all the Android 2.3 ones.

[cheesemp]

That's the point, I think: RIM wants the really sexy tablet-optimised apps to be written in its own platform, but if you really need to have thousands to choose from, here are all the Android 2.3 ones.

Well in which case I can see why they are playing it down. I can't see that many people wanting to write a tablet app for a 3 or 4 (depends if you include windows) platform - Supporting 3.0 Android apps would have given the platform a chance to gain market share. It looks like this is just a marketing tick box so they can say we have 100,000 apps even though most of them will run badly!