Developers wanting to bring their new and existing apps to the highly anticipated BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet will soon have additional tools and options to enhance and expand their commercial opportunities. Research In Motion (RIM) announced plans to greatly expand the application ecosystem for the BlackBerry PlayBook which is scheduled to launch in the U.S. and Canada on April 19.
RIM will launch two optional “app players” that provide an application run-time environment for BlackBerry Java® apps and Android v2.3 apps. These new app players will allow users to download BlackBerry Java apps and Android apps from BlackBerry App World and run them on their PlayBook.
In addition, RIM will shortly release the native SDK for the PlayBook enabling C/C++ application development on the BlackBerry® Tablet OS. For game-specific developers, RIM is also announcing that it has gained support from two leading game development tooling companies, allowing developers to use the cross-platform game engines from Ideaworks Labs and Unity Technologies to bring their games to the PlayBook.
“The upcoming addition of BlackBerry Java and Android apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook … will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion.
Developers currently building for the BlackBerry or Android platforms will be able to quickly and easily port their apps to run on the BlackBerry Tablet OS thanks to a high degree of API compatibility. The new optional app players will be placed in a secure “sandbox” on the PlayBook where the BlackBerry Java or Android apps can be run.
Developers will simply repackage, code sign and submit their BlackBerry Java and Android apps to BlackBerry App World. Once approved, the apps will be distributed through BlackBerry App World, providing a new opportunity for many developers to reach PlayBook users.
The BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry Tablet OS are built on the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture with a 1GHz dual core processor and a leading OpenGL solution, which allows RIM to make this incredibly broad platform support possible.
By Angela Meadon
