Step By Step Guide to Sideloading Apps on BlackBerry 10

As many of you may have noticed, a lot of our recent posts for popular apps involve sideloading.  If you are unfamiliar with sideloading, it is taking a downloaded .BAR file, mainly an Android port or a beta copy of a new app and then installing it on your PlayBook or BlackBerry 10 device using a PC and USB cable. It may seem really complicated but once you have it setup its really easy to do. If you are new to sideloading or just wanted to see another way to do it check out our step by step guide below:

Let’s start, I use the Chrome extension called PlayBook App Manager, mainly because it can be used on many different PC OS platforms whether Windows or OSX.  You can download Chrome and install it here, if you already do not have it installed. From there, head over to the Playbook App Manager extension page and click ‘Add to Chrome’ in the top right.  Now don’t get me wrong, you can use other apps like BBHTool, DDPB or the new vnBB10, but from here will be continueing using PlayBook App Manager (PAM from here on).

Ready to start loading up all those apps and games? Not so fast, we need to enable Development Mode on your device.  Open the ‘Settings’ then scroll down and press Security and Privacy.

From there,  Development Mode is at the Bottom.

Once in Development Mode, press where it says ‘Off’ to turn it on.

Once you turn it on, you will be prompted to enter in a password.  I just use my device password as it makes it easier than trying to remember two different ones.  After it is enabled, you will see the IP address that you will need to connect to your device from the computer, so write it down. Connect your device to your computer and open Chrome,  please make sure that your device drivers are already installed on the computer, or you will not be able to proceed further.  Once in Chrome, click the URL bar and type in “https://your.ip.goes.here” so in my case https://169.254.0.1.  The first few times you might get a warning within Chrome stating that ‘The Site’s Security Certificate is Not Trusted’, ignore that and click proceed anyway.

Next it will ask you for your password (the one you chose when entering Development Mode). Once logged in, this screen will appear.

To load a new program, press “Install” in the top right hand corner.A pop up will appear where you chose which one you would like to add to your device.

From there, PAM give you a little progress bar upon start of install.

And once complete, it tells you it was successful.

Now if you chose to delete and of your sideloaded apps, you can remove them from within PAM.  Jut find the one you want to remove and press “Uninstall”. Once you restart your device after being in Development Mode, you will need to re-enable it using the steps above, and the password will be the same. Similarily, using the other programs mentioned above, the process is  quite similar.  Now as for obtaining bar files to use, I mainly use AndroidBars, but there are many other sites around as well. And please do not be scared to try this, this will not brick or nuke your device, like trying apps on legacy devices.  Have fun with it and use your device to its full potential!