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This may have been asked and answered before, but I can't find an answer in a search.
How do you use Android? I know jack about running Android. I downloaded a free Android game just to see what the interface is like, but all I get is a blank "Recent Applications" screen. How does the Android player work? Doesn't appear that the PlayBook swipe gestures work within it.
You have an additional gesture for going back. You would need to swipe from bottom to left/right bezel.
Excuse my ignorance but I also can't seem to locate/enable/open Android apps nor do I know how to look for them or distinguish them.
Being the layman that I am, I was under the impression that there would be a "sandbox" and the Android apps with have the little Android logo somewhere on them. This is still a mystery to me.
Can someone please explain it to me?
(And by the way, I used the "search function" and that's what lead me to this thread. :) )
Everything is mixed together, so you can only tell by 2 ways really. By downloading the app and seeing it run in the Android player or sometimes you can tell by the screenshots of the app in App World. For example, the screenshot will be portrait generally with the Android menu bar above (looks like a picture from a screenshot of the phone).
I have an android app of Minesweeper (free, and that is the exact name, nothing else), also one called "Mind Scanner", and "BBC News". They are all free, so maybe try one of those and you will get a feel of the Android player until you find some apps randomly that is more your flavor.
For those that don't want to search and or read, here is a video (from the Crackberry front page today) with Crackberry Kevin speaking to Michael C (RIM)...Go to 12:30 where they discuss Android.
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eOCMMh8IYyQ[/YT]
So all the hype and excitement about an Android player was for this junk??? People made it sound like it was this great separate app that you run and then access the Android app store, etc. What's the point if you can't even find Android apps?? (There's some developer firm out there called Android Research, but all their apps look like phone apps and they suck.) You can't even side load Android apps.
I like the full integration, but would love to be able to somehow discern Android apps from PlayBook apps besides clicking each one to see screen shots of it. And access to the Android store would be the strawberry on top.
@tayl0rd, why don't you buy an Andro�d tablet.
Because I don't want one. My point from my previous post was that I don't see what all the hype and excitement for an Android player was all about. If they're gonna give it to us, why not make it so the apps can be readily found? Maybe it was a passive-aggressive move by RIM against all the people that whined and pined for it.
hes talking about the hype for it,
Give it some time. OS 2 is out 18.5 hours. If you've been following Crackberry then you would know the many many apps submitted are backlogged for approval into App World.
Also, the app loader was separate in beta but as you said your self, it's better integrated as it is now. Now need to differentiate between native, android,air or what ever base the apps are created. That's just to confusing for many people.
They just need to get to App World and work. This is what they (RIM)are working hard at doing.
I like what I am seeing run so smoothly. I do feel like I have a new pb and have to get used to some of the changes. Thank you for this post. I had this same question.
For whatever reason, that doesn't work for me in any app; whether it be Android or native.:confused:
Just to eliminate any other confusion, you can only download apps from RIM App world. Android and standard apps are all mixed together with no indication which is which. You will know you have downloaded an android app only after you run it. There is nothing special you need to do.
You can not download random android apps and install.
The swipe from bottom/right bezel is an Android Player gesture. You have to enable this in the Android player settings:)
What does it matter if it's an android app or standard pb app? If it works, it works. No where have i read that android app store would be available. Educate yourself a little before you make posts that make you look like a tool. Seriously, it takes 5 seconds to use the search feature which works very well here. The android app player has been covered hundreds of times on these forums.
All that hype was because people wanted quantity. I cannot speak about Apple because I do not have an iPad or iPhone, but I can speak of Android. Android apps are generally horrible looking and easy enough to make that there is a whole lot of garbage apps. They have some good apps, but 98% are just low quality and sometimes non functioning apps... lots are useless too, and some with malware (though not many).
The hype (though good for RIM) was because people wanted quantity and assumed there would be a Android Marketplace. What I think RIM wants (and so do I), is that the Android developers will start to use the playbook to make more powerful and nicer apps. RIM seems to me to be more focused on quality than anything.
I too wish they would distinguish Android and Playbook apps so I could focus on Playbook apps, but if they did that they would
1. be advertising Android and
2. removing the mystique of quantity by separating the filler from the native higher quality apps.
Again, all of my opinions. I will say that although I don't want ports, but I do want some apps only for Android/iOS (for example, Kindle)
If you really wanted Android Market, you could have gone over to the rooting section and gotten Marketplace. You can sideload Android apps, but you must sign/convert, of which takes very little time, provided one is literate enough.
I know it's been covered in some of these threads, but does the new 2.0 play straight apk's now? or does everything still need to be converted to .bbb? For example could I d/l the amazon app store and install run apps from that?
Thanks