Submitted by Well, this is interesting. Research In Motion is hard at work on its PlayBook tablet, as well as on its new mobile operating system, for the device based on QNX. It’s no secret that RIM intends to deliver some form of backwards compatibility for its older BlackBarryOS applications. And that’s where a golden opportunity arises.
BoyGeniusReport is rumouring that RIM is considering choosing DalvikVM as its Java VM. Dalvik is the virtual machine which underlies the Android operating system, and it is claimed that if RIM were to opt for it, it could potentially bring support for running Android applications along with it.
“Here is the big news: we have been told RIM is very much considering the Dalvik virtual machine, and we ultimately expect the company to choose Dalvik,” BGR reports. In other words, at this point, it’s nothing but a big rumour, but it doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it seems.
If RIM were to go with Dalvik in order to run Android applications, it would most certainly do so in cooperation with Google. You see, Google is not particularly interested in whether or not you use Android – all it wants is for you to use its services and use its ads. By working together with RIM, Google ensures its own mobile ad service will gain a prominent position on RIM’s new tablet and operating system – and thus, RIM’s new mobile phones. On top of that, Android applications running on RIM’s new QNX-based platform will still use Google’s ad services.
Of course, there is one big potential problem – and that problem lies with the patent threats against Android, or more specifically, against the Dalvik VM by Oracle. Whether the threats can be substantiated or not is not relevant; uncertainty is problematic enough in the business world.
Still, it’s an interesting idea, and it would give users of RIM’s upcoming platform an immense body of applications to draw from, while giving Google a lot of prestige and new market opportunities. This rumour really isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
I’ve read this story a couple of places and it just doesn’t seem right. It takes more than just using the Dalvik vm to be able to run all android applications. To be able to run android apps seamlessly in QNX you’d basically need to emulate android within it. Its technically possible I guess but that just seems like a recipe for bloat, bugs and corner cases where things just plain don’t work right. I just don’t buy it, not at this stage.
I think someone might have misheard someone saying that using dalvik means that Android devs would find to easy to port applications to the new Blackberry OS. And then that got exaggeration over time to become new blackberry to run android apps.
This just seems like a far out rumor that getting traction because its so far out there.
I’m pretty sure it got traction because people don’t really understand the issue.
If running Dalvik VM was all it takes, don’t you think we would have been running Android applications on Linux a long, long time ago?
It obviously takes more than just the Dalvik VM – I figured everybody realised that without me pointing it out.
Well, the boys at Boy “Genius” Report didn’t realize it:
Ubuntu run Android app by default if that matter since very, very long time
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/26/canonical-giving-ubuntu-the-gift…
In theory the feature is there, but I never saw or tried it
Edited 2011-01-27 06:13 UTC
Do you have a link where this actually happened, as opposed to just being in very early stage?
What early stage? Just install the android sdk and blam, you can run android apps on ubuntu. It’s not rocket science.
How else do you think the majority of development is done, it’s not done directly ON the device.
Sorry, I’m in an agitated state
I’m glad I’m not the only one who found this story hard to believe.
Seems like some people think that DalvikVM == instant Android app compatibility.
Edited 2011-01-26 22:08 UTC
There are reasons it gains traction even in tech crowds: it’s monumentally feasible. QNX, although of independent birth, has long conformed to the POSIX standard and even shells out the money to be certified with UNIX branding. The linux kernel under android, while not shelling out for branding, is by and large POSIX compatible. The android libraries would not need an extraordinary amount of tweaking to talk to QNX instead of Linux.
It’s not the kernel that matters but the user space tools and I thought Android, though powered by a Linux kernel, by and large used non-standard user space tools.
Are you saying that Android’s user space is POSIX complient as well? If so, then I can see your point.
The userspace utilities are open source, non-standard or not. You would be porting them from one system to a relatively similar one.
It’s a make-work project. Rim’s legal department needs to kick in more hours so management is trying to get them added to the Oracle vs Google legal action over Java. Makes perfect sense..
</sarcasm>
Actually, since RIM already licenses Java from Sun and has patent indemnity, maybe they’re figuring they’ll have an advantage over Google…
Would it be that complicated? I’m not an Android or BB dev so I really don’t know but it seems like with Dalvik and some Android libraries (GUI, IO, etc) ported it, it could work…again, I’m not a dev of those platforms but to me it seems plausible.
Is that cuz Barack Obama uses it?
Edited 2011-01-26 22:07 UTC
What I find most interesting about this story is that Qt has already been ported to QNX. Shouldn’t it be easier to run all the new MeeGo/Symbian applications in this new platform?
It might be not only easier, but the timing would be better, with the first MeeGo devices showing up together with the PlayBook. There are less licensing issues too (none if I’m not mistaken). It might not be possible to make the PlayBook use stuff like the Ovi store or the AppUp store, but making the development tools target the PlayBook would probably be easy… Easier than running Android.
But I guess what fuels the rumors is not technical feasibilities, but the presence of Google or Apple in the story.
What new applications? What little they have aren’t worth bothering with. There are reasons why Nokia is dropping.
I’ll never understand this “There aren’t any applications!” Okay, granted you said new applications, but there are tons of applications already for MeeGo, since it IS a Linux distribution, unlike Android which is just the Linux kernel with some crap slapped on top.
well there aren’t that many commercial Qt apps optimized for phone or tablet yet. Having access to an already large number of smartphone optimized apps is a good selling point to try and steal back market share. Having access to apps that may exist in the future isn’t since I’m sure RIM would rather people develop for the Blackberry as the primary platform if at all possible.
The number of applicaitns available for Ios Android, Qt, BlackBerry SDK etc is not that much relevant. A large company, with large ambitions should not take that in consideration. They must provide the basics, and the apps will come.
I love it how people talk like programmers were dumb stupid being incapable of working with more than one platform. Of course people eventually stuck to their favorites, but good programmers are always learning how to make applications to new platforms. and if it is easy to get the development started, as it is with Qt, that helps a lot.
And regarding the use of Dalvik… Are the existing BlackBerry applications written in Java? If that is the case, I can see they having interest in using Dalvik not because of eventually being able to use Android applications, but just because the Dalvik engine is better than the traditional Java machine. The registers vs. stack architecture thing, etc. It could be just about looking for a better Java machine for the device, and not hoping to run aplications from an alien OS.