Blackberry will bring it’s iconic Blackberry Messenger on Android and iOS this weekend. They had earlier announced in May that BBM will soon make its foray on these 2 mobile OSes, however the date of release was not confirmed.
BBM will be available as a free download for Android smartphones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean (Android 4.x) beginning at 7AM EDT on September 21. BBM for iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 will become available for each market on the App Store schedule of 12:01 AM local time on September 22. You can visit www.BBM.com for more information!
Bringing BBM to Android and iOS is probably the best move that they have made in a long time. Till now, users swore by Blackberry messenger, infact many of the users stuck to Blackberry only because of BBM and their mail. However, because BBM was only available on Blackberry platform, it severely restricted Blackberry users’ communication to people who had blackberry handsets.
With BBM arriving on Android and iOS7, it will now compete with likes of Whatsapp who have garnered over 200 million users. Though mainly a instant messaging client, Blackberry is positioning it more of a social network, where users can not only communicate instantly with each other, but also collaborate with each other due to features like sharing photos, videos, voice notes and files up to 6 MB.
BBM for Android and iPhone features
- BBM Chat – Enjoy real, immediate conversations with friends on Android, iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. Not only does BBM let you know that your message has been delivered and read, it also shows you that your friend is responding to the message.
- More than chat – With BBM you can share files on your phone such as photos and voice notes, all in an instant.
- Keep your group in the loop – Multi-person chats are a great way to invite contacts to chat together. BBM Groups lets you invite up to 30 friends to chat together, and go a step further than multi-chat by sharing photos and schedules. And, with Broadcast Message, you can send a message out to all your BBM contacts at once.
- Post Updates and stay in the know – BBM lets you post a personal message, profile picture and your current status, and lets your contacts know instantly in Updates.
- Your unique PIN – Every BBM user has a unique PIN that maintains your privacy, so you don’t have to give out your phone number or email address to a new or casual contact.
One of the strong points of BBM is that it has other apps that can be integrated with it. BBM users can communicate on Facebook and Twitter from within BBM app itself, which is not possible to do with instant messaging clients like whatsapp and hike.
I am definitely looking forward for Blackberry Messenger coming on Android. It is just 2 days away. Will let you know if my excitement over it was justified, or was it too far fetched!
