The latest OS by Blackberry-BB 10 is getting good reviews for its intuitive gesture based interface. Even app developers have embraced the OS along with much older and matured Android and iOS for developing apps for the platform. In a short span of time, its apps count have reached 150,000 apps. But, it still lacks many of the popular apps that are available on Android and iOS platforms. That’s why Blackberry has allowed developers to port Android apps in to the Blackberry devices (also called as side-loading). Read on to find how to install your favorite Android apps in your BlackBerry devices :
Step 1: Preparing the Computer
The method requires you to have Google Chrome installed on your Windows/ Mac computer. If installed already/ after installation, head to Chrome Web Store and search for PlayBookApp Manager.
Once the extension is installed, Open it and bookmark it for the easier access.
Step 2: Preparing the BlackBerry device
You’ve to put your smartphone into the ‘Developer Mode’ by going to Settings > Security and Privacy > Development Mode. Enable the switch next to ‘Use Development Mode’. You’ll be prompted to choose and enter a Development Mode password, make sure you remember it as it’ll be required soon. Write down the IP address of your device.
Step 3: Finding the Android Apps
The apps to be installed on the smartphone are actually .bar files. There are plethora of websites which offer these files, but we’ve find these two websites which are very reliable-http://bb10bars.net/ and http://apps.goodereader.com/.
Download the apps which you may want to install.
Step 4: Connect your device
Connect your Blackberry to the computer via USB cable. Open the PlayBook App Manager extension and enter the IP which you wrote down in Step 2. Once connected, click the IP address under ‘Manage your device’ section.
If you’re presented with an SSL error, click Proceed anyway.
Step 5: PlayBook App Manager
In this page, enter the device password which you entered in Step 2.
Now, you’ll see App Manager console. Simply drag and drop the .bar files which you downloaded in Step 3 and once completed you’ll see a message indicating that the install was successful.
While this is certainly a breath of fresh air for Blackberry owners or prospective Blackberry buyers who like the device, but want to have apps that are available for Android. But, this method is not perfect and have some caveats :
- You’ll not find .bar files for all the Android apps since the apps have to be ported via .apk files of Android.
- The installed app(s) may not work very well as they are not specifically designed for the BlackBerry devices.
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This article is written by Sanjay Kumar Negi – http://www.91mobiles.com/
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Great tuts.