1. preferredgeoff's Avatar
    Here is why the apps are lacking for the playbook and why playbook native apps will always be lacking. Why is a developer going to develop for the playbook when they have an android app already developed and out to market. They simply can wait on Rim to release the android emulator or whatever it is, spend no more money on development, maintain a single product that will work on two different OS's and keep costs to a minimum. Lots of these smaller developers are making peanuts on there .99 apps and probably can't afford to hire more people to do another app as most likely they already develop for iOS and android. This was explained to me by one of my customers who makes an Investment app for iOS and Android. Makes sense as they are not losing anything by not being on the playbook at this time and have more to gain by waiting till RIM does their android thing. Unfortunately in the end the playbook is going to turn out to be an android tablet more then a QNX tablet if a lot of developers are using this strategy. I do like the playbook and want it to be good, I just think rim should have either gone android on there tablet or tried to make a go of it on their own OS with no android apps.
    05-26-11 12:33 PM
  2. brucep1's Avatar
    there are so many threads on comments already on this..
    05-26-11 12:34 PM
  3. Foreverup's Avatar
    Thank you for sharing
    05-26-11 12:34 PM
  4. turqrazor's Avatar
    Yes there is a surprising lack of 99 cent fart sound effect apps on the playbook. I am disappointed.
    05-26-11 12:54 PM
  5. offthahorseceo's Avatar
    well, obviously i havent used the android player but its essentially an emulator.

    its been said (maybe innacurately) you need 10x the processing power of the device youre emulating to have a good experience, some of these android devices have 1 ghz processors. Some apps on my dell streak overclocked to 1ghz still stutter even when not multi tasking. i can only imagine it will not be a good experience.

    as of right now developers arent missing much by not having products in AppWorld. However, any business person knows its always better to have multiple revenue streams. The current question is wether the effort involved in creating the apps is worth the potential revenue as it stand right now
    Last edited by offthahorseceo; 05-26-11 at 01:05 PM.
    05-26-11 01:01 PM
  6. papped's Avatar
    well, obviously i havent used the android player but its essentially an emulator.

    its been said (maybe innacurately) you need 10x the processing power of the device youre emulating to have a good experience, some of these android devices have 1 ghz processors. Some apps on my dell streak overclocked to 1ghz still stutter even when not multi tasking. i can only imagine it will not be a good experience.
    Wow this is a lot of misinformation...

    It's a port of the Dalvik VM, the same VM that android uses to run android applications...

    This is not your standard software emulation scenario.
    05-26-11 01:16 PM
  7. Steve Rizla's Avatar
    Here is why the apps are lacking for the playbook and why playbook native apps will always be lacking. Why is a developer going to develop for the playbook when they have an android app already developed and out to market. They simply can wait on Rim to release the android emulator or whatever it is, spend no more money on development, maintain a single product that will work on two different OS's and keep costs to a minimum. Lots of these smaller developers are making peanuts on there .99 apps and probably can't afford to hire more people to do another app as most likely they already develop for iOS and android. This was explained to me by one of my customers who makes an Investment app for iOS and Android. Makes sense as they are not losing anything by not being on the playbook at this time and have more to gain by waiting till RIM does their android thing. Unfortunately in the end the playbook is going to turn out to be an android tablet more then a QNX tablet if a lot of developers are using this strategy. I do like the playbook and want it to be good, I just think rim should have either gone android on there tablet or tried to make a go of it on their own OS with no android apps.
    When RIM releases the C/C++ NDK there will be a flood of apps. Most Software companies have a pile of C/C++ code just waiting to be ported over.

    Forget that you even heard of the Android player as it will only play Android 'phone' apps which will not take advantage of the PlayBook hardware and OS features.
    05-26-11 01:29 PM
  8. offthahorseceo's Avatar
    i should have said "from what i understand"

    i dont know squat but i still dont like the idea. Sure im going to try it when its available but i still think that applications developed specificallyfor the playbook will be an overall better experience
    05-26-11 01:31 PM
  9. TheScionicMan's Avatar
    Actually, I don't think they were going to use the Dalvik VM because its caught up in litigation. But I agree that its not really comparable to emulators we are used to. It's basically recreating the same environment that Android does to run an app in.

    There's also the issue of visibility. Your app gets lost in the other markets. A good early strike in App World could be really lucrative because of the small amount of competition.
    05-26-11 01:36 PM
  10. papped's Avatar
    i should have said "from what i understand"

    i dont know squat but i still dont like the idea. Sure im going to try it when its available but i still think that applications developed specificallyfor the playbook will be an overall better experience
    The point is that android runs a virtual machine to run their own apps, on Android.

    So in essence you do not like what Android already does for native Android apps. Makes sense?
    05-26-11 01:45 PM
  11. offthahorseceo's Avatar
    yes, yes it does...

    05-26-11 01:47 PM
  12. drethos's Avatar
    isnt bluestacks the one making the emolator? if not im following them on twitter for nothing... even though i hope the native sdk comes before the emolator but since its slated for fall fat chance supposedly heard through a rumor. god i hate rumors.
    Last edited by drethos; 05-26-11 at 02:51 PM.
    05-26-11 02:40 PM
  13. FineWolf's Avatar
    I'm a developer, and I don't agree.

    The reason why there isn't much high-profile apps on the Playbook is because there is a cost associated to building an application on a platform and right now, the platform is too new and the market untested to justify investing in it.

    It has NOTHING to do with the Android Player. Till we get figures from RIM on how much Playbooks were sold and clear plans for the future of the platform, don't expect a lot of high-profile apps. Also, most of us are waiting for the NDK.

    That said, I love my PlayBook.
    shupor likes this.
    05-26-11 02:44 PM
  14. Dapper37's Avatar
    Way too much short term thinking going on!!
    05-26-11 02:44 PM
  15. sportline's Avatar
    why isn't it even has bloomberg on it? or nytimes? is it that difficult/expensive to make?
    05-26-11 05:20 PM
  16. ifarlow's Avatar
    Likely because the tools some (most?) larger/decent/professional developers want to use aren't available yet... namely the NDK which isn't due to hit gold status until fall of this year.
    05-26-11 05:44 PM
  17. TBone4eva's Avatar
    I'm a developer, and I don't agree.

    The reason why there isn't much high-profile apps on the Playbook is because there is a cost associated to building an application on a platform and right now, the platform is too new and the market untested to justify investing in it.

    It has NOTHING to do with the Android Player. Till we get figures from RIM on how much Playbooks were sold and clear plans for the future of the platform, don't expect a lot of high-profile apps. Also, most of us are waiting for the NDK.

    That said, I love my PlayBook.
    I think this is exactly why RIM chose to allow Android apps. To help circumvent the "chicken or the egg" game. By letting developers port some of their current apps with minimal investment, thereby getting more PlayBooks sold to consumers who are reluctant to buy a tablet that doesn't have strong developer support with lots of great apps.
    05-26-11 06:49 PM
  18. whackamac's Avatar
    Way too much short term thinking going on!!
    can you blame them when there are people out there releasing stuff like the g-tablet that needs a 3rd party rom just to work decently? But like our developer friend said, he loves his playbook... this is a nice device.

    Didn't RIM state that the android player will only play apps from the bb market and that dev's have to submit them?
    05-26-11 09:57 PM
  19. BBThemes's Avatar
    Why is a developer going to develop for the playbook when they have an android app already developed and out to market.
    because the android app player (and java player) will be `sandboxed` giving them less (if any?) access to system API`s, which could potenitally depending on the app, severly limit its functions.

    isnt bluestacks the one making the emolator? if not im following them on twitter for nothing... even though i hope the native sdk comes before the emolator but since its slated for fall fat chance supposedly heard through a rumor. god i hate rumors.
    the NDK will most likely be out in beta come july, they have already confirmed they are aiming for devcon for a `gold` release.

    why isn't it even has bloomberg on it? or nytimes? is it that difficult/expensive to make?
    why do you want an app for a website? you have a great web browser, why not use that? set it as a bookmark and your done.

    or alternativelty simply make your own app for it, RIM showcased a 3min app build, so you could do that.
    05-26-11 10:13 PM
  20. FineWolf's Avatar
    I think this is exactly why RIM chose to allow Android apps. To help circumvent the "chicken or the egg" game. By letting developers port some of their current apps with minimal investment, thereby getting more PlayBooks sold to consumers who are reluctant to buy a tablet that doesn't have strong developer support with lots of great apps.
    Not really. The Android Player will only support Android 2.3 apps. Problem is, Android 2.3 was targeted at phones, not tablets. Apps which were written for 2.3 are therefore optimized for the small screen size of phone devices.

    I won't let my customer suffer through a sub-par experience which is why I will not submit the Android application that I support in App World. I rather have an optimized experience or no experience at all.
    05-26-11 11:58 PM
  21. sportline's Avatar
    Not really. The Android Player will only support Android 2.3 apps. Problem is, Android 2.3 was targeted at phones, not tablets. Apps which were written for 2.3 are therefore optimized for the small screen size of phone devices.

    I won't let my customer suffer through a sub-par experience which is why I will not submit the Android application that I support in App World. I rather have an optimized experience or no experience at all.
    does that means that anything that works on galaxy tab 7" will work on pb isn't it?
    05-27-11 12:51 AM
  22. FineWolf's Avatar
    does that means that anything that works on galaxy tab 7" will work on pb isn't it?
    No. Developers need to package their applications for the PlayBook and submit it to the App Store manually.

    Also, only applications which do not use native Android packages will be supported.
    05-27-11 01:08 AM
  23. geHuC's Avatar
    BTW ins't the reason the android player runs only 2.3 because the source code for Android 3.0 isn't released yet ? i guess when 3.0 is released there is nothing stopping RIM from adding the ability to run 3.0 compatible apps with the player
    05-27-11 04:37 AM
  24. xandermac's Avatar
    Except for the fact that any App that uses Android Native Libraries won't be supported, so anything that was built using the Android SDK is probably moot by default, any games or apps that use native graphic libraries etc....

    The app player won't be of much use.

    RIM made a mistake by not having the NDK ready and out to developers BEFORE they released the PB. Even Apple know to get the development tools out there before they release a new version of iOS, they have big name devs on stage showing off their wares before the platform gets out to the public. RIM on the other have won't publicly release their NDK until the fall, so with development and approval time that moves us into 2012 before good native apps that really take advantage of the PB start to arrive.

    Sure, I kinda blame RIM, but not because of the app player, thats not going to be of much use anyway. Its because the NDK is too late. Having said that, the platform needs to prove itself as viable to developers before they invest too much anyway, nasty catch 22. Thats why RIM should have had the NDK in major developers hands before releasing the PB, to have some BIG showcase apps.

    They dropped the ball themselves with FaceBook. The PB is the only tablet with a native, Tablet optimized version of FB and look what RIM did, merely copied the BB version of the App! Pathetic, could have been a killer tablet app yet they released a boring, text based piece of crap with absolutely no thought or innovation.

    Oh, Android 3.0 is released btw, and the tools, my understanding is that 3.0 tablet apps arent supported because they ALL use native android libraries. So whats the point if all were left with is 2.3 apps (that don't use android libraries) designed for a phone? Pointless.

    BTW ins't the reason the android player runs only 2.3 because the source code for Android 3.0 isn't released yet ? i guess when 3.0 is released there is nothing stopping RIM from adding the ability to run 3.0 compatible apps with the player
    Last edited by xandermac; 05-27-11 at 07:18 AM.
    05-27-11 07:14 AM
  25. TBone4eva's Avatar
    I think the NDK excuse is a cop out. The NDK is not the only development tool available to make a good app. EA came out with two great games using what was already available. Now obviously not everyone has EA's resources, but it proves that if the big dogs wanted too they could get support from RIM to get really good apps out on the PlayBook without the NDK. I get the sneaking suspicion that RIM has reached out to a lot of other companies, but has been given a cold shoulder with the let's "wait and see" attitude.
    Last edited by TBone4eva; 05-27-11 at 07:30 AM.
    05-27-11 07:27 AM
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