Nokia N9 Android App Support Promised With Alien Dalvik

Nokia may have flagged up the vast number of Qt apps available for the Nokia N9 (and its developer sibling, the N950), but the catalog doesn't necessarily end there. Myriad has already demonstrated its Alien Dalvik system for running unmodified Android apps on MeeGo devices, developer Steve Troughton-Smith reminded us, as seamless to the end-user as the join between the N9's display and the polycarbonate housing, and promising the same performance as native software.

Alien Dalvik allows app stores and developers to simply repackage the Android .apk installation files and then have those apps run on MeeGo hardware like the N9. Hardware capabilities of the device are accessible to the original Android app, and any more complex integrations can be tweaked to suit using the Android SDK plugin Myriad offers.

It's not the first time we've heard about cross-platform Android app support, of course; RIM announced earlier this year that the BlackBerry PlayBook would support Android software later in the year. Our first impressions of the Nokia N9 were very positive, and we can't help but imagine Android apps on the sturdy Finnish hardware would be a compelling combination.

According to Myriad, Alien Dalvik will be commercially available for MeeGo sometime this year. The company announced last month that it was in talks with car companies to use the system on vehicle computers, an area MeeGo is already targeting, with BMW, GM, Hyundai, Renault, Delphi and Peugeot-Citroen all signed up to use the platform in future vehicles.