When we first heard that BBM was coming to Android, some of us were excited but, most of you out there were a little skeptical. After all, BBM no longer dominates the instant messaging scene like it once did. With services like WhatsApp now claiming the Lion’s share of the market, it’s hard to see what a release on Android and iOS would do for BBM after all this time. Regardless, BlackBerry are carrying on with things and the app is currently being worked on.
As BlackberryOS has discovered, the company is now beta testing BBM on Android. Here’s a peek at the e-mail:
As it states in the e-mail, Android users will have to be running Android 4.0 or above to run BBM. However, you shouldn’t get your hopes up just yet, it might be some time before you’re IMing those old friends that stayed faithful to the ‘Berry. As Engadget has now been passed an official comment from BlackBerry, we learn that this is just an internal beta, for now.
BlackBerry has begun internal testing of BBM on Android and iOS devices. We invited our employees to nominate friends and family to participate in a limited Android beta. Those slots are now full. For more information, please visit www.blackberry.com/bbm.
It’s a shame that we’re not able to sign-up our selves and try out the service on Android but, after so long in coming we’re sure BlackBerry isn’t looking to drag their feet any more they need to. With that said, they’ll want to make sure that when they do finally launch cross-platform that the service is not only ready for the influx of new users but that they have apps that compete with the likes of WhatsApp.
The question still remains though, will anybody use this when it launches on Android? We’re pretty sure it’s going to be a ‘Yes’, but not as loud as BlackBerry will be looking for. The fact is that BBM is no longer mainstream and so, there’s not much of a call for it on Android or even iOS at this point. Let us know in the comments whether or not you’re looking forward to BBM on Android.