BlackBerry releases launcher and other apps as a subscription service on Android

BlackBerry has released its own apps for Android phones from other brands. This is done as a Hub+ subscription service, for which users have to pay 99 cents per month. Then they get, among other things, the BlackBerry Launcher and the Hub, in which notifications come together.

In addition to the Hub and the Launcher, Hub+ also includes the Password Keeper, BlackBerry’s Calendar app, Device Search, Notes and Tasks, BlackBerry has announced. This means that all Android phones can now run the applications made by BlackBerry, provided the user takes out the subscription.

Users can take out the subscription by installing the Hub from the Play Store. A thirty-day trial is available for the service. BlackBerry has also made Hub+ available for more devices, including smartphones with lower screen resolutions and smartphones with Android 5.0 and higher. The services do not work on tablets and require 2GB of RAM.

Offering Hub+ is the next step in the Canadian smartphone maker’s embrace of Android. The last two smartphones that the manufacturer released, the Priv and DTEK50, were both also equipped with Android. BlackBerry still releases updates for its own operating system BlackBerry 10. The last devices with that OS, the Passport and Classic, appeared at the end of 2014.