Rumors since CES about the Blackberry Playbook - from an iPad 2 killer to the biggest thing since sliced bread for enterprise users - included the possibility of the tablet being capable of running Android applications. Now, straight from the horse's mouth, RIM announces just that: the Playbook will support applications made for Android 2.3 through an emulator sort of application, thereby giving the app base around 225,000 available apps from launch (200k from the Android App Marketplace and 25k current Blackberry apps). Which is definitely a bold step in the right direction, but begs the question: isn't Android 2.3 old already?
Sure, most of us are still using 2.1 or 2.2, but the Motorola Xoom runs on Honeycomb, which is made specifically for tablets. Having a wide selection of apps available through the Android Marketplace really is great...but these are going to be phone apps.
RIM also announced that the Playbook will support C/C++, Adobe Flash and Air, and the Airplay and Unity 3 game engines. The developer SDK will be available this summer, presumably before the Playbook officially releases around the same timeframe.
