[chrysaurora]

I met a developer today that recently ported his company's Android app to BlackBerry 10. The trouble he said was that Android apps don't support all those gestures that BlackBerry 10 does. So, his ported Android app is not going to respond to some BB 10 gestures and hence offers degraded experience.

Valid point. So, this leads me to wonder: RIM is going all out in attracting developers. Helping developers port their apps to BB 10. But if a ported-app essentially provides a degraded experience (doesn't recognize gestures), wouldn't it make app look inferior? And wouldn't that sort of degrade (overall) BB 10 experience ?

[MADBRADNYC]

Good point!
However, I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but shouldn't a developer willing to port his application over to BB10 put in a bit of additional effort to make it work with gestures? Doesn't RIM provide the tools to producing a proper port? I don't think RIM is encouraging a "Plop-A-Port" ecosystem where apps are just converted and dumped. A little effort is required IMO.

Let me know if I am off base here...
Thanks!

[chrysaurora]

Good point!
However, I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but shouldn't a developer willing to port his application over to BB10 put in a bit of additional effort to make it work with gestures? Doesn't RIM provide the tools to producing a proper port? I don't think RIM is encouraging a "Plop-A-Port" ecosystem where apps are just converted and dumped. A little effort is required IMO.

Let me know if I am off base here...
Thanks!

Here is what he told me: he didn't have Dev Alpha device (and a lot of corporate developer's don't) and it's difficult to do and test gesture based stuff on an emulator. Specially, when a lot of companies have developers/technical staff off-shore. Off-shore developers are working with emulator and are unable to support gestures out of the box. I guess, they'd be able to fix this AFTER BB 10 production device is released and probably update their apps.

But for now, I am a bit concerned that lack of gesture support will degrade the overall BB 10 experience.

[MADBRADNYC]

I guess I can understand about wanting to use an actual device for testing.
But, there are only a finite number of Dev10 devices provided to developers.
I just wonder how some off-shore developers can utilize RIMs toolkit to use gestures properly, but others seem to need an actual device.
With over 100K apps reported, a large portion being ports that work with gestures, and the limited Dev10 devices, I wonder how these developers accomplished this.

I guess I don't fully understand why this cannot be done.
I also realize that I am not a developer to be able to say anything with any certainty.

Thanks for the information!

[MADBRADNYC]

I guess, they'd be able to fix this AFTER BB 10 production device is released and probably update their apps.

I also would like to add that this makes sense to me as well.
I'm sure there will be updates to many applications when the devices actually hit the market.

[koolrosh]

Bottom line is that this developer is lazy and does not want to put the work necessary to make a native app. When you port an app all you do is take the App and package it so that BB app world can read it, so its basically an Android App that runs on the BB. of course you wont be able to use BB10 specific gestures for those Apps.

Developers who care about the experience, can instead "convert" the app to BB10, which basically requires someone to go through the code and change some references to make it compatible with BB10. This requires more time but provides the best user experience.

[MADBRADNYC]

Bottom line is that this developer is lazy and does not want to put the work necessary to make a native app. When you port an app all you do is take the App and package it so that BB app world can read it, so its basically an Android App that runs on the BB. of course you wont be able to use BB10 specific gestures for those Apps.

Developers who care about the experience, can instead "convert" the app to BB10, which basically requires someone to go through the code and change some references to make it compatible with BB10. This requires more time but provides the best user experience.

+1. Again, I could be totally wrong, but these were my thoughts exactly, and basically what I was trying to say.

[Xopher]

Bottom line is that this developer is lazy and does not want to put the work necessary to make a native app. When you port an app all you do is take the App and package it so that BB app world can read it, so its basically an Android App that runs on the BB. of course you wont be able to use BB10 specific gestures for those Apps.

Developers who care about the experience, can instead "convert" the app to BB10, which basically requires someone to go through the code and change some references to make it compatible with BB10. This requires more time but provides the best user experience.

It's a little bit more than that for Android developers, since Android apps can be written in Java, and BB10 is C++. From what I've seen, there aren't any hooks to link up gestures to a Java Android app, so if they are simply porting it, it will only have Android gestures, along with the couple of added Android Player gestures. To get the full BB10 experience, the app has to be completely rewritten in C++, Webworks, or AIR.
It looks like it might actually be easier for iOS apps to be converted, since they are originally written in Objective C. It becomes a task of switching over to C++, which isn't as much of an issue as switching from Java.

It might be easier for an Android app that includes C++ code to begin with (those usually don't run well in the Android Player). But an app written in Java is pretty much limited to Android Player conversion, or complete rewrite.

[mikeo007]

Bottom line is that this developer is lazy and does not want to put the work necessary to make a native app. When you port an app all you do is take the App and package it so that BB app world can read it, so its basically an Android App that runs on the BB. of course you wont be able to use BB10 specific gestures for those Apps.

Developers who care about the experience, can instead "convert" the app to BB10, which basically requires someone to go through the code and change some references to make it compatible with BB10. This requires more time but provides the best user experience.

Sounds like you have no clue what's involved in developing and porting an app.

[georg22]

If you want the full BB10 experience then only download apps with an "Built for Blackberry" label.

[ubizmo]

I'm not a developer, but shouldn't a properly written app have generic "hooks" (for lack of a better term) for certain kinds of input? For example, to get a menu in an Android app, the user should tap the menu button on any Android device. On a BB10 device, it should be a down swipe from the top bezel. On either device, the down swipe or the button tap produce a code and that code triggers the actual menu function. Since there won't be a menu button in BB10, for the app to work at all, it'll have to accept the down swipe code to trigger the menu. That doesn't seem like a big deal, if even I can understand it. The Android home button produces another code, and the BB10 upward swipe will have to be linked to that function. Again, this doesn't seem problematic to me, so I don't see why the BB10 experience should be degraded much, if at all.

I'm not sure about the back/escape button, though. Both Android and BBOS have a dedicated back button that allows the user to back out of things at any stage. It lets the user close things within an app, without exiting the app. I don't know if BB10 will have a universal way of doing this.

[MADBRADNYC]

Again to be candid, I am not a developer, but this statement appears to be saying the same exact thing as the previously member and I posted.
Yet again, just a bit more elegantly using the proper terms for the programing language.

It's a little bit more than that for Android developers, since Android apps can be written in Java, and BB10 is C++. From what I've seen, there aren't any hooks to link up gestures to a Java Android app, so if they are simply porting it, it will only have Android gestures, along with the couple of added Android Player gestures. To get the full BB10 experience, the app has to be completely rewritten in C++, Webworks, or AIR.
It looks like it might actually be easier for iOS apps to be converted, since they are originally written in Objective C. It becomes a task of switching over to C++, which isn't as much of an issue as switching from Java.

It might be easier for an Android app that includes C++ code to begin with (those usually don't run well in the Android Player). But an app written in Java is pretty much limited to Android Player conversion, or complete rewrite.

When juxtaposed, they read just the same to me...

Bottom line is that this developer is lazy and does not want to put the work necessary to make a native app. When you port an app all you do is take the App and package it so that BB app world can read it, so its basically an Android App that runs on the BB. of course you wont be able to use BB10 specific gestures for those Apps.

Developers who care about the experience, can instead "convert" the app to BB10, which basically requires someone to go through the code and change some references to make it compatible with BB10. This requires more time but provides the best user experience.

The bottom line from what I see here is that a simple port would not have the gestures working properly or even fully.
And, that in order to have that experience, a developer must re-write the code.
Which brings me back to my grossly basic original statement...

Good point!
However, I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but shouldn't a developer willing to port his application over to BB10 put in a bit of additional effort to make it work with gestures? Doesn't RIM provide the tools to producing a proper port? I don't think RIM is encouraging a "Plop-A-Port" ecosystem where apps are just converted and dumped. A little effort is required IMO.

Let me know if I am off base here...
Thanks!

All three of these quotes seem to say the same exact thing but each with a bit more detail than the previous post.