BlackBerry to support Android Jelly Bean apps, analysts bullish about Q10

BlackBerry is adding support for Android 4.2 Jelly Bean apps over the coming months, while analysts are increasingly bullish about sales for the company’s Q10 smartphone.

In a post on BlackBerry’s official developer blog, product manager Matt Whiteman has announced that Android Jelly Bean apps are supported in the Android development tools for BlackBerry 10.2, a forthcoming software update of the company’s Blackberry 10 operating system.

“This release includes the first beta release of Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). All the great features that were previously available in [Android] Gingerbread will continue to be supported, as well as some specific Jelly Bean OS features such as Fragments, embedded fragments, animation framework and hardware acceleration.

“Keep in mind this is the first beta release, and there will bound to be some bugs as we work our way towards the gold release later in the [northern hemisphere] summer.”

Meanwhile, according to AllThingsD, leading analysts are increasingly bullish about sales of the company’s flagship BlackBerry Q10 and keyboard less Z10 smartphones.

Late last week, Societe Generale analyst Andy Perkins raised his rating on BlackBerry from “sell” to “buy” based on predictions the Canadian smartphone maker will sell a million Q10s in the fiscal first quarter along with four million Z10s.

Following the upgrade, Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um also issued a note predicting strong sales of the Q10.

“[There has been] Good Q10 customer interest and demand,” Um said.

“The Q10’s launch has been much more successful than the Z10 launch, which is consistent with our view that the die-hard BlackBerry installed base of 76 million loyal to the keyboard presents a strong upgrade opportunity.”