RIM makes it easy to port Android apps to PlayBook, BlackBerry 10

It’s a common refrain, not only here but at tech blogs around the web: If BlackBerry 10 isn’t full of compelling apps, it will fail no matter how friendly the other features. Mobile users love apps, as evidenced by the massive download numbers from the App Store and Google Play. While App World does have a large number of apps, it lacks some of the world’s most popular ones. While that won’t change for the current BlackBerry platform, it could for BlackBerry 10. A few recent stories point out how RIM has made the porting process easy for developers. That resistance-free process might make the difference for RIM’s comeback. The latest comes from the BlackBerry DevBlog. Bill Larocque and Dave Wagler of PineLake, the developer that created the popular app Cubifice, related the ease with which they ported the Android app to the new BlackBerry platform, including both the PlayBook and the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device. It’s definitely a lesson RIM wants to spread, and it seems to be working. Big-time Android blogs such as Android Authority have picked up on the story. Says Wagler: “The porting process only took us one hour. The application was built using the OpenGL framework, which has a lot of existing support. Once I read the documentation about how to convert the application, it was extremely easy to install the BlackBerry tools into Eclipse™. After a couple of clicks, we came up with the BlackBerry 10 application. It took a very small amount of increased labor to build on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry 10 versions, and the rewards have certainly been worth it.” Says Larocque: “We couldn’t believe how quick, easy and powerful the porting process was. That last hour of work was the most productive time that we spent on the entire project and it allowed us to work with a real live device. I would recommend that all Android developers try it because it is so straightforward and has already proven to be successful for us.” Those are sellable quotes for sure. With a process so easy and with such great results — Larocque notes that they “have 25 times more downloads on BlackBerry App World than on Google Play — it’s hard to see Android developers ignoring such an easily and potentially profitable process. In addition to Android apps, a story from two months back revealed that one developer could port iOS apps to the PlayBook. If RIM can work on this angle as well as they’ve worked on the Android angle — it’s been a selling point of the PlayBook for a while now — they could have something big brewing for BlackBerry 10. This gives me much more faith in the future of the platform. Of course, RIM still has to deliver both the product and the apps. While the product delivery is somewhat in question — those delays and subsequent speculation do not sit well with many BlackBerry fans — it appears RIM can deliver on the apps.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.