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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

You can run Android apps on BB10. But there would be no point in running Android, it would be a big step backwards security wise.

Not to mention that Google don't do Android out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to make phone handsets commoditized with all the cool stuff in the software and in their "cloud". That's not a market you want to be in as a manufacturer - just ask IBM who were driven out of PCs, a market they created...

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I read that Android support in BB10 is not so great.

Most of Android components are open sourced. There are versions of Android which strips out Google stuff. For example Facebook released their phone which runs on Android. There is even alternative OS (sailfish) with similar architecture, which runs Android apps just fine.

The problem is that BlackBerry tries to be manufacturer. They do everything by themselves. Instead they should focus on services and existing standards.

Data point: I sideload Android apps onto my BB Z30 all the time, and it's less than five minutes from start to finish. I feel like I have the best of both worlds.

Facebook did not release a phone. They released a home screen/app launcher for Android. HTC did release a phone with it preloaded, which bombed (because move fast and break things works better on the web than on phones).

But so do Apple and they are wildly successful. BlackBerry's security model relies on integration of the OS with the hardware in such a way that they'd need to rewrite the Android kernel anyway to keep the same benefits.

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