14 DAY TRIAL // A new flavor of the BlackBerry 10 SDK OS is now available for download for interested developers, namely version 10.2, bringing along some appealing enhancements, especially for those who want to test their Android applications on the platform.
The new SDK release comes with the beta flavor of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps and Plug-in for Android Development Tools, which offers support for Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean).
“All the great features that were previously available in Gingerbread will continue to be supported, as well as some specific Jelly Bean OS features such as Fragments, embedded fragments, animation framework and hardware acceleration,” BlackBerry announced in a blog post.
“Keep in mind this is the first beta release, and there will bound to be some bugs as we work our way towards the gold release later in the summer.”
Those who would like to test their applications on Jelly Bean will simply have to download the BlackBerry 10.2 Beta SDK OS, the mobile phone maker also notes.
Later this summer, the BlackBerry 10.2 device simulator is set to receive support for the Jelly Bean flavor of Android as well, it seems.
“Additionally, our Android Runtime tools have been updated to support Eclipse 4.2, Android Development Tools v22 and can now target Android SDK level 10 to 17,” BlackBerry continues.
To take advantage of the new tools, developers will need to grab the updated 1.6 release for the BlackBerry Eclipse Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools, so as to be able to use the Android Runtime features for BlackBerry 10.
At the moment, the update is available for developers using BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha B and C devices, while also offering support for the commercially available BlackBerry Z10 and Blackberry Q10 mobile phones.
The new BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS can be found available for download on this page.