Despite BlackBerry indicating that it has no plans to build a device that runs on Android, some hoped for an about-face abrupt enough to see the popular operating system arrive on the Silver edition of the BlackBerry Passport. That didn't happen, but a YouTuber is claiming to have loaded the Android OS on the recently launched BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition.
There's plenty of reason to be skeptical of the video. Though the Passport line has been out for nearly a year, it's still a huge undertaking to run Android on hardware not designed to support the OS. Plus, there's the quality of the video.
It's like UFO footage, and there isn't a whole lot of reasons why videos purporting to show hard-to-believe feats, such as baking Android into BlackBerry's protected hardware, are in low quality instead of crystal clear HD.
In June, rumors of an Android-powered BlackBerry device began to pick up steam and the question of such a move was put to BlackBerry CEO John Chen, who didn't outright dismiss the notion, but there was a caveat.
"We only build secure phones and BlackBerry is the most secure phone," said Chen. "So if I could find a way to secure the Android phone, I would also build that."
While it's unclear if BlackBerry is seriously considering an expansion to Android, what is clear is the fact that the company just isn't ready to give up on its mobile hardware business.
BlackBerry has been successfully pivoting to software, with sales of its apps and services up by about 20 percent in the company's last quarter. Still, the handsets business has been struggling. Chen, however, thinks BlackBerry's handsets business can return to being a reliable revenue stream.
"We have a couple of new phones coming out towards the end of this calendar year and we'll see. We're bullish on them," said Chen.
Without revealing targets, Chen also said he believes the rest of the milestones ahead of the company's handsets business are achievable.
Here's the video of the supposed Android-powered BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition. Please ingest a few grains of salt before viewing:
