BlackBerry is a company that built its success on producing its own phones and its own software. However with Android being the most popular choice right now in terms of mobile operating systems, safe to say that the Canadian company no longer has the clout that it once used to have.
In fact if anything, the company seems to be grudgingly embracing Android with the upcoming BlackBerry Priv, and speaking at the Code/Mobile Conference (via BlackBerryOS) the company’s CEO John Chen stated that he would consider dropping BB10 for Android in the next couple of years.
Now before you start panicking, there is a caveat. The caveat here is that BlackBerry must first be able to bring the security features of BB10 over onto Android before such a move would even be considered. This could be quite a monumental task given that BB10 and Android are developed so differently, so at most we would take Chen’s statement as a hypothetical situation rather than a promise or a roadmap of BlackBerry’s future.
However Chen did acknowledge that if they were to move to Android, it would help close the app gap that has been plaguing the company. While Android apps can be installed and run on BlackBerry OS phones, the experience is not the same and not all apps can be installed either, leaving this as a less-than-ideal situation as opposed to being a happy compromise.
Either way we suppose we will have to see how the public reacts to the BlackBerry Priv upon its release to see if making the move to Android will be worth it at all.
Filed in . Read more about Android and BlackBerry.