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View Full Version : Are Pigs Flying? BlackBerry PlayBook and Smartphones May Run Android Apps!

Craig Horlacher
01-29-2011, 11:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.bgr.com/2011/01/26/exclusive-blackberry-playbook-and-smartphones-to-run-android-apps/' target='_blank'>http://www.bgr.com/2011/01/26/exclu...n-android-apps/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Here is the big news: we have been told RIM is very much considering the Dalvik virtual machine, and we ultimately expect the company to chose Dalvik. If that sounds familiar to you, it&rsquo;s because it&rsquo;s the same VM that the Android OS uses, and it would allow RIM&rsquo;s PlayBook and other QNX devices to run just about any application built for the Android platform."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/adt/auto/1296334577.usr309.jpg" /></p><p>This sounds great to me!&nbsp; I don't see any way it would hurt Android and it could save RIM.&nbsp; I'm all for more competition and I love when software can work on devices it wasn't intended for.&nbsp; Would this make you consider the PlayBook, Torch 2, or Storm 3?</p>
Llew Silverhand
01-30-2011, 12:30 AM
Just because they choose to use the Dalvik VM, doesn't mean it can run Android apps at all. It's the Android API that lets apps run.

They could run Android apps without Dalvik, or could use Dalvik and not be able to run Android apps.

Totally unrelated.
Craig Horlacher
01-31-2011, 11:21 PM
I understand what you're saying Llew. However, it sure would seem to be a smart move for RIM to create a way for their devices to suddenly have access to a much larger selection of apps. We'll see what happens!

This got me thinking, do they currently have a Java VM built into the Playbook? If not, it seems strange that they would switch to using Java. Well, they could just add it for running some java apps but there is no mention of Java here:
http://www.qnx.com/company/announcements/blackberry_tablet_os.html
I know RIM could have added java or maybe it just wasn't in this list but I'm all for this happening! Again, I guess we'll see what happens!