Kevin Bostic
The BlackBerry Messenger app's arrival on iOS could be imminent, as a BlackBerry rep has announced that the app was submitted for Apple's App Store approval some two weeks ago.
Word of the submission came Friday afternoon from the Twitter account of BlackBerry's Alex Kinsella. "Just in case we forgot to mention," Kinsella wrote, "BBM for iPhone was submitted for review 2 wks ago. #waiting #BBM4ALL"
BlackBerry initially promised the app in May of this year, saying it would arrive on both Android and iOS over the summer.
"The time is definitely right for BBM to become a multi-platform mobile service," Andrew Bocking, executive vice president of Software Product Management and Ecosystem at BlackBerry said in a press release. "BBM has always been one of the most engaging services for BlackBerry customers, enabling them to easily connect while maintaining a valued level of personal privacy. We’re excited to offer iOS and Android users the possibility to join the BBM community."
BBM was once the gold standard in mobile messaging, with its secure interface and powerful tools. In the years since, though, its fortunes have mirrored those of BlackBerry itself, with some users moving away to other platforms as competition increased.
When it does debut on iOS and Android, BlackBerry Messenger will face not only services like Apple's iMessage, which reproduces many of BBM's features as well as its security, but also Google's Hangouts app, which allows for much of the same functionality and is deeply integrated into Google's existing services. It will also go up against third-party apps like WhatsApp, which has a user base in the hundreds of millions.
According to BlackBerry, BBM has more than 60 million monthly active users, and more than 51 million of those people use BBM for an average of 90 minutes per day. BBM customers send and receive more than 10 billion messages each day.
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13 Comments
The App Store probably put it on the back burner and thought if they'd hold out for two weeks then maybe BlackBerry would be out of business.
this app may be their most valuable asset at the time of the sale lol
Hey Blackberry, the game started about 4 years ago! You're a little late.
The only ppl that may remotely use BBM are those that wanna chat with blackberry users or an ex blackberry user. iOS users got whatsapp for cross chatting.
Hey Blackberry, the game started about 4 years ago! You're a little late.
Agreed! Way too late. They should've released this when their first tablet failed. They could've at least saved their services from suffering the same fate as their hardware.