BlackBerry begins rolling out BBM for Apple's iPhone
Beleaguered device maker BlackBerry on Monday announced that its popular messaging platform --?BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM --?is now officially available for iOS and Android, five months after it was first revealed.
The company said in a blog post that curious iOS device owners who signed up to be notified of BBM's release could begin to use the service immediately, while others would need to wait for an unspecified period of time. BlackBerry says this reservation system is designed "to ensure a smooth roll out" following infrastructure issues when an unofficial build of the app for Android leaked out last month.
BBM, originally exclusive to BlackBerry devices, works similarly to popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage service. Messages are sent via the internet using the phone's mobile data connection, allowing users to bypass relatively expensive SMS plans.
BlackBerry says group chats and broadcast messages are supported at launch. Users can also send files, photos, and voice notes using the service.
One difference between BBM and other messaging apps is that it uses special, randomized device identifiers --?known as PINs --?rather than phone numbers or other personally identifiable information to distinguish users. This makes the service essentially anonymous.
Despite BlackBerry's recent misfortune, BBM remains wildly popular, according to the company. BlackBerry said in May that the service counts more than 60 million monthly active users, with many using it up to 90 minutes per day. BBM users transmit more than 10 billion messages each day.
Bringing BBM to competing platforms was the source of major internal strife at the Canadian company, according to a report published last month by The Globe and Mail. BlackBerry co-founder Jim Balsillie reportedly pushed the strategy late in his tenure as co-CEO, and severed all ties to the company --?resigning from the board of directors and selling all of his stock in the process --?when his successor canceled the program in 2012.
Early in 2013, faced with the abject failure of the company's new BlackBerry 10-series smartphones, BlackBerry resurrected the project. The company announced BBM for a summer release, which was later pushed back to the fall.
BBM is available now as a free download from the App Store.
The company said in a blog post that curious iOS device owners who signed up to be notified of BBM's release could begin to use the service immediately, while others would need to wait for an unspecified period of time. BlackBerry says this reservation system is designed "to ensure a smooth roll out" following infrastructure issues when an unofficial build of the app for Android leaked out last month.
BBM, originally exclusive to BlackBerry devices, works similarly to popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage service. Messages are sent via the internet using the phone's mobile data connection, allowing users to bypass relatively expensive SMS plans.
BlackBerry says group chats and broadcast messages are supported at launch. Users can also send files, photos, and voice notes using the service.
One difference between BBM and other messaging apps is that it uses special, randomized device identifiers --?known as PINs --?rather than phone numbers or other personally identifiable information to distinguish users. This makes the service essentially anonymous.
Despite BlackBerry's recent misfortune, BBM remains wildly popular, according to the company. BlackBerry said in May that the service counts more than 60 million monthly active users, with many using it up to 90 minutes per day. BBM users transmit more than 10 billion messages each day.
Bringing BBM to competing platforms was the source of major internal strife at the Canadian company, according to a report published last month by The Globe and Mail. BlackBerry co-founder Jim Balsillie reportedly pushed the strategy late in his tenure as co-CEO, and severed all ties to the company --?resigning from the board of directors and selling all of his stock in the process --?when his successor canceled the program in 2012.
Early in 2013, faced with the abject failure of the company's new BlackBerry 10-series smartphones, BlackBerry resurrected the project. The company announced BBM for a summer release, which was later pushed back to the fall.
BBM is available now as a free download from the App Store.
Comments
http://bit.ly/16qUmb7
30.9 MB
For other global store locations,
search "BBM".
Who cares about that POS? Too little, too late. BB is DEAD.
That could be nice, transition to a service company and leverage their corporate, government and enterprise aspects.
This might have been important two years ago. But now it isn't. Considering that most carriers give free messaging now, this no longer has much to offer.
err... your comment basically says that you don't understand the scope of BBM.
BBM is closer to iMessage than SMS. Always encrypted and relatively reliable, and can have business controls put on top of it. For corps this is a must have.
Given the kazillions of iPhones used in enterprise today... the "must have" must have evaporated long ago... when Research in Motion creaked to a crawl.
This will be big news only in the sorts of workplaces that have continued to use BBM because of its security and administrative features and have never adopted BYOD policies.
Hopefully this will convince Apple, gmail, etc. to offer the sort of high-end security and enterprise management features that are still pretty much unique to BBM. I doubt that it's going to revive the fortunes of BB, though.
Given the kazillions of iPhones used in enterprise today... the "must have" must have evaporated long ago... when Research in Motion creaked to a crawl.
Bang on. I get so tired of the whole "business class" marketing used by some services. End-to-end encryption is supported by most services these days, and people will generally tend to use whatever is easiest (regardless of what companies try to force upon them).
Blackberry/RIM or whatever they decide to call themselves is done.
What use is BBM, unless you have a bunch of other contacts that use BBM?
Blackberry is not doing that great in the corporate world anymore, and even drug dealers and ghetto thugs who used to like to Blackberries back in the day, to have as a status symbol, aren't using them anymore either. Blackberry is not even doing that great in the developing world anymore. I don't know a single person who uses BBM. I don't communicate with people who have Blackberries and I don't communicate with people who use Android, iOS has all of my bases covered.
This whole BBM rollout has been a late and delayed fiasco, reminiscent of many other Blackberry fiascos and disasters that have plagued the company these past years. This BBM rollout should have happened years ago, if they wanted to have any chance of it succeeding. They're finally releasing BBM, but the problem is that hardly anybody cares about it anymore. People are fleeing from Blackberry and moving to other devices. It's simply too late, much too late. Once you're already waist deep in quicksand, no amount of desperation is going to save you, you're done with.
I don't understand how this helps Blackberry in any way? The app is free, using it is free... they're just making it easier and more painless for even more people to abandon their platform but keep using their messenging service?
Or is the app ad-driven? Subscription-based? Maybe there's some hidden revenue stream I'm overlooking?
"Steve Jobs didn't want iTunes for Windows being released despite that being a huge reason for the amazing success of iPod and iTunes Music Store, and later the iPhone adoption but I didn't really understand why."
Not sure where this nonsense comes from.
Yeah, this guy is surely a big ol' liar. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131016120903-37087-the-butterfly-that-started-the-apple-tsunami
And consider the balls to not only make up shit but to quote people who could sue him for libel and then release on iBookstore. /s
Blackberry should have purchased Good when they had the cash to do so instead of QNX and expanded their footprint into services in a big way.
Today Good probably could find enough VC support to afford to buy Blackberry...
Yes Blackberry is in turmoil, however I don't believe them to be dead just yet, they will hopefully find their footing again and it will be in software. Their BBE enterprise solution is still one of the best corporate messaging services available for smart phones. The sheer amount of options available to the admin for adjusting the users views, the ability to connect to an Exchange, Domino/Lotus and GroupWise servers is something that some large firms still need. Remember, it's not just instant messaging but emails, notes, CRM and calendar/appointment functionality as well. People who have posted in this thread thus far seem to be not part of this demographic, haven't used it in a corporate environment, don't understand it's true purpose so really have no business posting here. You can't compare a simple messaging service like Whatsapp to BBS, their not even in the same ball park. The free client now allows company's to use other phones with their BBE systems besides Blackberry's, this is huge for some company's and could actually breathe new life in BBE. That is if RIM can pull it's self back together again, I'm not blind to the fact that they're in big trouble but I'm at least hopeful that they can do it.
On a side note it disturbs me to see how many here on Appleinsider have become such tech snobs. I rarely read comments about other company's that aren't in a negative light. I get the whole Samsung is evil thing but not every company is out to get Apple.