Android App Player For BlackBerry PlayBook Leaked Out In Beta Form

What is RIM’s greatest obstacle? Honestly, it’s a tough question to answer seeing that the Waterloo-based company hasn’t had the best few months — but if I had to pick just one issue, it’d be lack of apps.

Not having enough apps on a given platform is akin to sitting down to a perfectly set dinner table and getting no food. Luckily, that Android App player that RIM promised for the BlackBerry PlayBook seems to be nearing launch.

According to the N4BB blog, a beta version of the player was spotted on the BlackBerry.com website. The page has been pulled, but it’s undoubtedly found its way to countless mirrors for your downloading pleasure. To the Googles!

Those who’ve already installed it on their BlackBerry PlayBooks seem to collectively agree that it runs rather slowly, and is missing a couple of the features RIM had promised (like a back button.) From what we gather, this is likely an old build of the player and it might be worth the wait to just get the real thing.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with RIM, the Android app player is basically a way of bringing Android apps to the PlayBook. The player is actually an app itself, which loads and “plays back” Android apps. However, not all Android apps are immediately available with the player. Developers must first port their Android apps to the PlayBook.

[via InfoWorld]