RIM no longer supporting Android apps on the Playbook
Initially, RIM promised Android application support for the BlackBerry PlayBook as a way to bolster the App World's somewhat slim selection. It took them quite a while to finally get everything working properly, but eventually they did deliver on the promised feature. However, all their effort has apparently not worked out in the way they wanted, as RIM has just announced that they will be dropping the ability to sideload Android apps from the current and future PlayBooks.
According to RIM's vice president of developer relations Alec Saunders, the decision was made because RIM doesn't want to "duplicate the chaotic cesspool of the Android Market." While this may sound hurtful to Android fans, there are a couple of reasons that this could be a valid argument. Apparently, apps were often pirated on the PlayBook utilizing the Android player, and it would make sense that some already buggy apps would perform even worse in the emulator.
Still, the Android app feature was, however small, a selling point for the PlayBook, and one that many users will probably miss. It appears that RIM will actually be disabling the feature on existing PlayBooks with a software update, something else that could prove annoying to users. RIM does say they plan to offer developers a new way to actually port applications to the BlackBerry App World, but for now users will be without some 300,000 applications on the Android market. It may prevent piracy, but other than stolen applications I see little reason to remove an already existing feature from a product.
[CrackBerry]
