BlackBerry 10.2 will add support for Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean apps

If you are an avid BlackBerry follower or user you may remember when BlackBerry (then RIM) launched PlayBook OS 2.0 with the ability to run specially packaged apps developed for Android 2.3.3. This was used to urge developers to port their apps over to the BlackBerry platform, but it wasn't easy to keep developers on Gingerbread when the Android platform was moving forward so quickly.

Rumors of the Android App Player being updated to support Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich were disputed as it was believed that RIM would phase off the Android app runtime in favor of apps written in C++, HTML5, or Adobe AIR. But it looks like BlackBerry isnt quite ready to give up on Android yet.

Today the company announced that BlackBerry 10.2 will come with support for Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

This is a somewhat large leap from Gingerbread 2.3.3 (API Level 10) to Jelly Bean 4.2.2 (API Level 17) and will offer several new features for developers. New versions of the Eclipse plugin and SDK are available to developers along with the latest 10.2 beta firmware for Dev Alpha B, Dev Alpha C, Z10, and Q10 devices. Those who don't own BlackBerry hardware are out of luck as simulators won't be available until later in Summer.

It is good that BlackBerry has updated their Android tools to support the newest Android software, Especially considering that the BlackBerry 10 market is still struggling to make a name for itself and wrestle away the third place from Windows Phone. It seems that the biggest developers are the hardest to convince to invest in a new platform especially if they cannot justify the cost of development. Giving them the opportunity of porting their already available Android apps to the BlackBerry platform is a good way to boost the BlackBerry brand until it is large enough to get its native apps.


source - BlackBerry | Android Police