If we were to go back a few years, the BlackBerry PRIV would not have been a particularly unique device, but fast forward to today where the majority of our smartphones are fully touchscreen, the PRIV is truly a unique handset as not only does it sport a full touchscreen display, but a slideout physical keyboard. A rarity these days.
That being said while the phone does run on Android meaning that Android apps for the most part should work with the phone, what about apps that might take advantage of its physical touchscreen? The good news for PRIV owners is that BlackBerry has recently released an emulator for the handset.
According to BlackBerry, “You can add a skin to the Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager in the Android Studio SDK so that you can emulate the look and feel of a BlackBerry PRIV. This allows you to simulate the hardware keys on the PRIV, including both the power, volume up, volume down and the physical keyboard.”
While this might seem to be aimed mostly at developers, the upside here is that developers who might want to create PRIV-specific or PRIV-optimized apps will now have an easier time doing so, which in turn will no doubt help benefit owners of the device. If you’re a developer looking to create apps that takes full advantage of the handset, head on over to BlackBerry’s website for the details.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Apps, BlackBerry and Blackberry Priv.
