BlackBerry and Android Team up for a Marshmallow Sandwich
Blackberry Hub+ is coming to more Android phones, launching the former smartphone king heavily into the software world. Hub+ is a suite of apps that will be familiar to longtime BlackBerry users of BlackBerry 10. It creates a central location of the phone into one unified interface.
Android Compatibility
So far, the suite of apps is only available for those devices running Android Marshmallow. However, BlackBerry has announced that they will be introducing the suite for Lollipop users in the near future. A trial version of Hub+ is available to download from the Google Play store via a simple search for “BlackBerry Hub +”. This trial lasts for 30 days, after which the user can use the entire suite for $.99 a month.
BlackBerry Software Launch
Though having launched software for its own hardware throughout the past, this is the FIRST launch of software only project for the company. Over 1 billion people use Android smartphones and the company projects that it
fulfills our promise to make the fruits of decades of R&D and software development as widely available to users of other devices and platforms.
What’s in the Hub
The app is comprised of the BlackBerry Hub and other BB made apps like Calendar, Password Keeper, Contacts, Tasks, Device Search, Notes, and Launcher.
BlackBerry Comeback?
With this launch of a new software initiative, BlackBerry hopes to enjoy a new beginning into the software game. Long ago thought of as the first smartphone that gained widespread popularity, BlackBerry has seen its market share drop to near nothing in the wake of the Apple iPhone and the myriad of manufacturers running the Android platform. Perhaps BlackBerry can gain some market share in the ever expanding software and app platform. This would be a win for a Canadian company that hasn’t had one in a long while. In fact, BlackBerry is counting on their growing software business to sustain it for the short term, while trying to get new hardware to fit the latest smartphone trends.
In the end, it still looks like a mountain to climb, but for the those who loved BlackBerry and still do, this is a big victory to get some of their favorite features to operate on their non-BlackBerry hardware. It may not be the giant leap forward for the former hardware giant step in the right direction.