[James Nieves]

Simply continue to develop/perfect the Runtime enviornment on QNX? My question is will the android tuntime even be relevant come BB10? Seems everything will be irrelevant with BB10

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[mithrazor]

I hope once BB10's apps and ecosystem matures. I hope they get rid of Android run time.

It increases boot time just having it there. Plus, I'd rather have the quality of BB10 and not Android. Since BB10 will include cascades.

[James Nieves]

I agree apps written in Native code seem to work most fluidly, I too do not wish for android to be in bed with QNX but would RIM even consider it within BB10, I too hope not. I hope the ecosystem is sound because that's what the OS is lacking. When you open an app you can pretty well figure how it was coded based on the responsiveness of the application within the QNX. Even games... There are certain apps like Gameloft games, and apps like Groupon, then run much better than some other native apps. Is this because RIM developers did the port of these apps themselves? This is an inconsistency problem that needs to be addressed within BB10

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[kbz1960]

Seems they have said the player will also be in bb10. Let's just hope they can get it running much better than they have so far. I would love native but might not be what we get.

[JamesDax3]

I said it before and I'll say it again. If it's RIMs plan to continue with this Android Player then there will be little to no incentive for developers to develop native BB10 Apps.

[James Nieves]

@Dax3
Isn't that the whole point of the android player? That the incentive is intrinsic because developers already develop for android? Blackberry needs to stop beating around the bush and decide what it is. It's trying to be. Native all the way it's the only way to let the QNX shine

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[bohbohboh]

android player will be the downfall of bb10/playbook. hope they remove it asap.

personally, i can't describe that sick feeling i get when download a new app and it says "initializing" when i open it (i then proceed to delete it right away after my horrible experiences of the player not closing fully).

[VerryBestr]

I said it before and I'll say it again. If it's RIMs plan to continue with this Android Player then there will be little to no incentive for developers to develop native BB10 Apps.

You can say it again and again, if you wish (many here do). But you (and they) are simply incorrect. My opinion, of course. There are a number of factors that give developers incentive to develop native BB10 apps.

To the extent that native apps work better than android apps, then there will always be an incentive for a developer to put out the first native app in a category, even if that category is already addressed by apps in the android player.

Android apps are not in the enterprise perimeter. That is, enterprise users of PlayBooks and BB10 phones will not be able to use android apps on enterprise data. Any developer who wants to sell to enterprise users must develop native apps.

RIM's app player only handles android apps written in Google's version of Java. The large majority of Android apps are written in Java. However, android apps that push the hardware cannot normally be written in Java (because Java apps run slowly in a virtual machine) -- these Android apps are typically written in C. Any developer who wants to bring such an app to BB10 will have to write a native app for BB10, just as he had to for android.

Unless Cascades delivers an amazing user interface kit, I think RIM is essentially dead. However, Cascades may well deliver the most incredible mind-blowing user interface kit yet seen. If so, you can be sure that some developers will want to create native apps using this interface kit.

An HTML5 app is, in my opinion, a native app. Developers are motivated to develop apps using HTML5, when possible, because their work can be used with little modification on several platforms. Both RIM and Microsoft are "betting" heavily on HTML5. These apps can be made "more native" in appearance by using the "look and feel" of each platform, although that takes a bit more work.

There are several reasons why the android app player is, in my opinion, critically important for RIM.

If you are a Java programmer and want to write a Java app for BB10, the only way to do it is via the android player. (I hope that, eventually, RIM will merge the Java player environment with its own libraries, to furnish a BB10-only Java development environment ... but that is not on the drawing board, as far as I know).

There are tens of thousands of apps, if not hundreds of thousands of apps, that will NEVER be brought over natively to BB10. Not while BB10 devices are less than a quarter or so of the smartphone market, and I don't see RIM reaching that level for years and years, if ever. Think of all those small businesses, volunteer organizations, local sports teams ...

Many of these apps will be commissioned by someone with a small budget, who will be quite content to cover iOS and android. However, if the developer proposes to include BB10 for a few hundred bucks more, then perhaps the RIM version will also be commissioned. A small developer shop could well do this, if the app works in the android player.

You and many others want native apps, fine. But the only way they are going to appear is if BB10 devices are successful and sell by the millions and millions. But that success is unlikely unless there are ALREADY plenty of apps (and not just the "biggies) when the first BB10 phone appears on the market. RIM can "bootstrap" its app store by exploiting Android's success. I think that is a very smart strategy, and one of the few that even has a chance of success.

[RIMvanWinkle]

I said it before and I'll say it again. If it's RIMs plan to continue with this Android Player then there will be little to no incentive for developers to develop native BB10 Apps.

Keep saying it, because you are correct.

Developers will respond "Why yes, we have _______ for BB10. It's been tested in the android player. And if we get enough requests, or if the platform gets enough market share, we might increase our development costs by maintaining a separate native version."

Which won't happen, and then folks will have a lousy android emulation experience reflecting on BB10, etc., etc.

They just need to have the guts to walk it around back to talk about the rabbits. I think Thor can do it but we'll see.

[VerryBestr]

... Which won't happen, and then folks will have a lousy android emulation experience reflecting on BB10, etc., etc. ...

So you think it is better to have NO app than to have an android-player app? That is exactly what will happen, because you correctly pegged the developers' reasoning: "... if we get enough requests, or if the platform gets enough market share, we might increase our development costs by maintaining a separate native version." I don't think that removing the android player will magically make many more native apps available.

I think the correct path is for RIM to improve the android player, identify android apps in the app store, and give users options to prohibit the android player, re-launch it without restarting the PB, and completely re-initialize it without doing a security wipe.