One of the great things about the Android developer ecosystem is the success of mobile app aggregators. These aggregators help developers expand their app distribution to a larger audience. In anticipation for the launch of the BlackBerry® Runtime for Android apps in early 2012, mobile application aggregators will be able to submit the apps from their Android app catalogues to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. If you are a developer who has submitted an Android application to an aggregator in the past, the aggregator should be in contact with you in the very near future to explain the process.

If you were planning to submit your application directly to BlackBerry App World yourself, take note that your direct submission will take precedence over, and the place of, the aggregator’s submission of your app. Direct submission of your app gives you direct control of your app’s meta data, including screen shots, application descriptions, and pricing.

Feel free to use our tool for packaging Android apps to convert your app to run on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet within your browser, or our BlackBerry Plug-in for Android Development Tools if you would like to make some changes in your code. To get all the latest info, tips, and news, visit our BlackBerry® Runtime for Android apps microsite.

Today at the BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 conference, the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook (“NDK”) left beta and ‘went gold’ for general availability. The NDK allows developers take full advantage of the power of the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet when developing apps. The NDK includes support for C/C++ POSIX library and compliance, device events like gesture swipes and touch screen inputs, access to code management systems using industry standard Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools) and advanced debug and analysis tools. QNX® Momentics Tool Suite, an Eclipse-based integrated development environment, is also included. It provides memory profiling, application debugging, and memory usage statistics to help developers debug sophisticated programs.

For the v1.0 release, we’ve kept the NDK lean and mean. APIs have been provided for the sensors on the device, as well as OpenGL ES 2.0. For sound, we’ve brought OpenAL along. For performance, POSIX threading. For portability, POSIX compliant APIs are included as well.

Additionally, the simulator team has been able to provide an OpenGL ES 2.0 environment to test out your 3D games. This means that our simulator makes use of your development platform’s hardware acceleration for 3D. As the NDK simulators mature, more and more features will be included as we are committed to providing developers the best tools possible.

The NDK is here, and it’s the start of a new and exciting episode for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet application development. If anyone has feedback they’d like to share, our doors are always open – don’t hesitate to engage with us on social media channels or the BlackBerry Developer Zone.

Download the Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS

How will you be using the new NDK in your application development?