Brace yourselves for a shower of BBM pins on the social networking sites – BlackBerry Messenger is now available for Android Phones and i-Phones. Although there was a slight delay in the launch of the app owing to a leak, it will sure help BlackBerry gain its lost footing in the quick Messenger Market. It has been aptly named “BBM for All”.
The BBM uses the phone’s internet connection to send messages. Not only that, BBM also allows users to send images, voice notes (audio recordings), files, locations on a map. It also helps in making video calls if the device supports so.
The various features of BBM are:
- Make video calls
- Messages with unlimited length.
- Personalized status and display picture
- Message delivery confirmation
- Photo sharing and video sharing with multiple contacts at once.
- Sharing files.
- Personalize discussion groups
- Location sharing on maps
- Free calling with BBM contacts
At present, BBM can be used on Multi-Platform (iOS, Android) which will offer Personal Chats and Group Chat for up to 30 people. People can also update status and can send or receive messages up to 2000 Characters. The integration with multiple platforms will increase the popularity of the application.
Competitors in this sector like Whatsapp and Hike will have to buckle up, because there is a certain excitement building up among the youth who till date had refrained themselves from using BBM, owing to the constraint of necessarily owing a BlackBerry Phone.
Sadly, the official launch of the app will take some time. Andrew Bocking, head of BBM at BlackBerry has filled up on the delay in launching of the app by stating that an unreleased and older version of the BBM was posted on various file sharing websites, which resulted in heavy data traffic on the user’s end and has corrupted the system in an unusual manner.
BlackBerry also has stated that in order to curb the damage already done, the only possible alternative is to delay the release of the application, as over a million users had already started using the unreleased version. BBM will not be available for the time being to both Android and iOS users.
BBM is currently on the process of updating the system so that this unreleased version of the app is completely blocked. They are also working on making updates so that this kind of a problem does not creep up in the future as well. This “BBM for All” can be used on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or later; and for i-Phone users, you will be needing iOS 6 or later versions. However, it is still unclear as to whether the BBM service can also be used on Android tablets and i-Pad.
For the time being, we will have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that the problems faced by BBM are quickly resolved and everyone gets a hands-on-feel of the app pretty soon.
