You might already know Android Player for BlackBerry PlayBook was leaked recently. It looks like pretty much intentional leak just to keep in the news while they work as slow as they can to complete it.
Anyway, I found the required files on CrackBerry forums and gave it a try. At first couple of attempts, after waiting for minutes I got some JAVA socket exception errors, but on third try, it went all fine.
The first thing I did was setup my email account so I can finally use PlayBook for some professional use, rather than just watching movies in spare time.
I was able to sync my Google Apps email, calendar and contacts easily using Android Player for PlayBook. However, there are not buttons to navigate. There’s a left to right swipe gesture on bottom bezel which works as Back command and swipe down for Options command on Android.
later, I explored the sys.android.bar and found there are actually "Virtual Keys" as PNG files for portrait and landscape orientations. So, I took a screenshot of Browser running in Android Player and Photoshop-ed the Virtual Keys PNG image on the the PlayBook screen just to get the idea how it’s gonna look. See for your self in bellow screenshot.
Looks nice, and it will be quite easy to navigate within Android Player with these standard Android buttons.
I think this is a great idea to allow Android apps run on PlayBook, as we have already seen how slow RIM is coming up with native email client, which gives us the idea how future updates going to come.
Just couple of days ago I was asking from a local mobile gadgets shop to exchange my PlayBook with a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Good that I didn’t went all the way to exchange it :D
// chall3ng3r //
hmmm I’ve had a look at this too. I feel it shows alot of promise. I spent more than a day analysing it and trying to port it to symbian. But I’m having trouble with the dependancies.
@Don: Yes, I feel good about it as well. I think Nokia should officially support port of it for Symbian and Meego OS.
It will really help Nokia in selling more devices, since they will be able to do a lot more than Android and iOS only devices ;)
// chall3ng3r //
@challenger true that. I thought I’ll wait till a official version is released . It’s a pain in the neck; i Just can’t seem to get it right . Honestly i Just dnt get Nokia sometimes. For example since they know that symbian is Dead at least release the device sources of the symbian phones so that at least we can have some fun with . But… It doesn’t seem to be happening. Sad isn’t it?
Yeah, almost all these big companies don’t realize that today, developers are the key to success of a platform.
Android is going so good because it have some level of openness and that the runtime can be ported to other OS, like Android Player for PlayBook.
I think RIM recognized the opportunity as they know how all users and developers are cursing them for lack of basic apps like email and calendar etc. So, Android Player will fill a lot of these gaps meanwhile they take care of the rest of there base OS.
Nokia can also utilize the opportunity to get their 150 million Symbian devices target met.
We can just give suggestions, rest is all on their marketing department unfortunately :/
// chall3ng3r //