BlackBerry 10.2 to introduce improved Android app support

Just a month after unveiling BB 10.1, Canadian maker BlackBerry is now focusing its attention on the next iteration of the smartphone operating system. Even though BB 10.2 is unlikely to be introduced in the upcoming weeks, the company already revealed an important detail related to the future version.

Late-yesterday, BlackBerry released the Android 4.2.2 runtime for BlackBerry 10.2, which allows developers to test apps originally designed for the second Jelly Bean iteration on the company's smartphone operating system.

By contrast, BlackBerry 10.1 provides a rather antiquated Android 2.3 Gingerbread runtime, which is criticized by users for providing a subpar experience compared to the native platform offerings.

BlackBerry says that the Android 4.2.2 runtime includes the currently-available features offered by its Gingerbread counterpart, but also introduces new ones like animation framework, embedded fragments, Fragments and hardware acceleration.