[leejayh]

So, no flaming here please. But, for those of us who are not technically as savvy as the very gifted people here on the forum - could someone explain how the new Android Runtime implemented in 10.2 is technically different from the 10.1 versions and why the Android apps are so much better now?

I know that it it probably can get quite technical - so links to other articles would be fine as well. I am really interested in this.

One other thing - I read somewhere that the developer environment for BB10 has also had a quantum jump in what is supported. Could someone explain that (or point me in the right direction) as well?

Many thanks!

[howarmat]

The old runtime was based on android code from 2 years ago basically and the new one is much more current. Most android developers are working with new code so features they build into their programs using that code now work.

With 10.2 headless apps are going to be supported. That means you can have programs that will run in the background without having to be an active frame. This is the big jump IMO.

[AnimalPak200]

Good question, it'd be interesting to find out...

Other than the headless functionality, have they loosened up any restrictions the RT has in 10.1 (if any)? Is it encapsulated or sandboxed differently (more leniently)? In addition to the actually android version update... is there a significant change to how it works (not how it performs)? I'm referring to something akin to when the PB RT switched from having all android ports running in one 'app' to allowing each android port to open separately.

Posted via CB10

[mylesw42]

I thought it was hardware acceleration, no?

Posted via CB10

[Papaguan]

From a technical standpoint, the reason why apps run smoother on 10.2 as opposed to 10.1 would be because the emulator was optimized in ways; the most notable thing would be hardware acceleration was finally supported. If you're curious, hardware acceleration is simply utilizing the hardware itself to complete complex instructions rather than doing the calculations in the software (which is slower). Lastly, the 10.2 run time is much more up to date (Jellybean vs Gingerbread) so any apps using APIs that were introduced after Gingerbread will actually have the potential to execute as the developer intended. Hope this helps.

[qwang]

this might explain something
I just run "antutu" on the same device with latest 10.1 leak and 10.2 leak

I got another question, is BB10 only using one core in android player?

[toddgrayson]

Android 4.0 went through a number of optimizations which resulted in much better performance. Those optimizations then translated into better performance when emulated in BlackBerry 10.2 along with improvements in the BlackBerry emulation.

Posted via CB10

[MyFirstOwnUsername]

With 10.2 headless apps are going to be supported. That means you can have programs that will run in the background without having to be an active frame. This is the big jump IMO.

This also means you will have less control over your battery performance. Currently if all frames are closed, you can almost be sure there is no ****ty app running in background draining the battery.

[qwang]

This also means you will have less control over your battery performance. Currently if all frames are closed, you can almost be sure there is no ****ty app running in background draining the battery.

maybe that's why they bring the app monitor to 10.2

[xACiD]

Didn't see it mentioned but 10.2 (or the later runtimes) add support above 2.3.

Posted via CB10

[Dave Bourque]

Hardware acceleration support for 10.2 with Android. It should take full advantage of the hardware this time.

Posted via CB10

[southlander]

This also means you will have less control over your battery performance. Currently if all frames are closed, you can almost be sure there is no ****ty app running in background draining the battery.

Yeah I gotta say I like not having headless apps for the most part. Though there are clearly some apps that make no sense running non-headless. Such as needing remember opened to have it sync, etc.

When I first saw how BlackBerry 10 worked I imagined having tons of active frames opened all the time like I do with windows on a PC. But in practice I typically have just one or two things opened.

As others have mentioned I like knowing that if there are no active frames nothing is running. As opposed to needing to use a task switcher to view back grounded apps.

Z10STL100-4/10.2.0.1443