14 DAY TRIAL // BlackBerry 10.2.1, the upcoming OS flavor from the Canadian handset vendor, will arrive soon with a brand new Android runtime packed inside, and the company has decided to offer some details on it.
In a post on its official blog, BlackBerry unveiled that the new runtime would bring along appealing improvements, including support for Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, as well as hardware acceleration and performance updates.
Furthermore, the runtime will provide improved compatibility, while also offering support for features and APIs that users and developers have been asking for.
The improved compatibility capabilities that BlackBerry 10.2.1 will bring along include native support for Android applications that use shared libraries written in native-code, such as C and C++.
“Support is limited to the recommended system headers and APIs as documented by Google. Headers and APIs outside this scope may not function correctly,” the blog post explains.
At the same time, the company explains that the upcoming OS release will also offer support for Android applications using Android Bluetooth APIs.
BlackBerry notes that Bluetooth LE for Android will be supported in a future platform release, and that BlackBerry 10 Native/Cascades SDK already supports it.
BlackBerry 10.2.1 compatibility improvements will also include:
- MapView v1: Applications that use MapView from Google Maps v1 API are now supported using OpenStreetMaps. Support for MapView v2 API is being planned for a future release.
- Share Framework: Android applications that register with the share framework in Android will now also appear as share targets on the BlackBerry 10 share menu.
- Spellcheck: Applications that use text input can now leverage support for spell checking and correction, and the ability to add words to the BlackBerry 10 dictionary.
These improvements will result in expanded support for ported Android applications, and developers will soon receive access to a BlackBerry 10.2.1 SDK OS to start testing their applications.
At the same time, the new features and APIs will be accompanied by a new Beta release of the BlackBerry Tools for Android development, BlackBerry announced.