It’s official folks. BBM is finally coming to Android. This week. It’ll be available for free and to devices running Android 4.0 and above. BlackBerry Messenger is one of those Blackberry features that’s the only reason why Blackberry still has any market share. However, it’s great that Blackberry is beginning to see things the way that Google has, and that’s to get their services on as many platforms, thus as many devices, as possible.
Earlier this year, Blackberry announced that their messaging app, BBM, would be making its way to Android and iOS this summer. And boy are they cutting it close. BBM is launching on Android on September 21st and iOS on September 22nd.
So what kind of features are we going to see? Well let’s see what our friends in Waterloo have in store for us with the new BBM app:
- 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.
Blackberry is also saying that video and voice calling are coming soon to the Android version. BBM is still very popular around the world. In fact, many people still use a Blackberry to use BBM. Not to mention how secure it is. While there are already a ton of great messaging apps out there like Hangouts, Whatsapp, Viber, etc., it’s going to be tough to see where BBM lands, when it comes to Android and iOS. Although I’m sure a lot of people will try it out, I’m not sure how many will continue to use it.