BlackBerry Messenger RESURRECTED for iOS, Android doodads Lugubrious smartphone maker BlackBerry has resumed the rollout of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for iOS and Android devices, almost a full month after it yanked the code from app stores following a botched launch. There's a catch, though. Although you can download the apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play beginning on …
Are there even 1m people who even care about BBM, let alone 6m?
2010 is calling, they want their messaging app back. The world has moved on, Google Hangouts and WhatsApp is what people use. Blackberry are playing games by pretending there is a queue. (my local nightclub does this on shit nights...)
in my experience no one really is actively using Skype on their mobile ... just leave it running for half hour and it will drain your battery flat !
Whatsapp, Viber and (god help us) Facebook messenger are far more used, judging from the marked ranking,
But yes there are more widely diffused messaging services ... blackberry missed a trick, they should have released a client yonks ago... maybe 4 years !
Now it is really no longer relevant with a spiralling down user base... too little, far, far too late !
So if I've got this right, to activate BBM on my android phone, I've had to switch it away from my BB. I realise this is how BBM/BlackBerry id has traditionally worked, but we're in a multi-device world now. Also, there's seemingly no tablet support.
As a product it seems to work well enough, I'm just not convinced people will bother switching to it.
The invitation for the VIP list, is sent to the email address that you entered 'for notification' that the APP was available.
now the Gotcha...
In the invitation, it states that you can use the APP now
- but 'only' with the email address that the invitation was sent to. Duh ?
Who would have (automatically) used their BBM email-like ID for this ?
It never said you should use that one.
and I bet there are plenty of people who use a different BBM ID to their regular even current email address, many may have used a work address to be notified at.
SO for some,
the invitation may be useless unless they wish to change or add a new BBM ID.
Blackberry are a PITA about email addresses -- tried to download a T Mobile app from BB World to my phone and it proclaimed that the (fake) email address I'd given would henceforth be my email address -- which would be hopeless if I opted for push mail at some point.
Instead downloaded app via my PC with BB Desktop -- which spent about 20 minutes faffing about with updates and then rebooted the phone twice (at 3 minutes* per cold boot !! ). But at least it didn't get into a knot over email addresses.
* Yes, three minutes to boot a BB 9800 -- how did that get past the prototype stage ?
"All Blackberries are secure devices. They take several minutes to boot just like any Samsung Android with the Knox software addon. That's the way you spot a truly secure device at boot time."
Windows Phone is more secure than both Android and Blackberry 10, yet much faster to boot, so that's clearly bollox.
Even with admin access to the Windows Phone OS, the binaries can't be tampered with, yet Blackberry 10 was completed compromised via a Flash exploit...
It looks like they actually underestimated the demand and hadn't scaled for millions of new users. What is interesting is the hate that gets generated against a Canadian company that is struggling against much larger companies in the phone market. What have they done? Did they kill your kittens and trample your flowerbeds?
Whatsapp wants your phone number, which in my way of thinking is a security black hole. I don't know enough about Hangouts to comment, but then, other than someone who works for Google, I don't actually seem to know anyone who uses it. It may be that they are both superior to BBM, but until it's been given a fair try we won't know.
>What is interesting is the hate that gets generated against a Canadian company
People could give a crap about where the company is based. The marketplace has spoken and BBs problem is their phones sucked from 2008 or so until very recently after which it was too late. No amount of butt hurt will change that fact.
People could give a crap about where the company is based.
Which means what precisely? I suspect you mean "couldn't", though the image called up of people visiting the toilet because a phone was designed in Canada is at least interesting.
The marketplace has spoken
The marketplace is where things are sold. It has no opinions. Wrong noun. You probably mean "customers".
and BBs problem is their phones sucked from 2008 or so until very recently after which it was too late.
A description, in fact, of Apple from OS 8.5 through OS 9.2, which then was replaced with OS X "too late" according to all the Windows fanboys of the period. Some people even thought at the time that Macs would be replaced by desktop Linux. Confident writing off may be right - but not always.
No amount of butt hurt will change that fact.
The illiteracy of your post gives me a pretty good idea of (a) your nationality and (b) your credibility as a mobile devices expert. But you have still failed to answer my observation: why hate? Did they indeed tread on your flowerbeds and kill your kittens? Because not wanting something is one thing, but, unless it's fascism, the Black Death or something of similar unpleasantness, actively hating it seems very odd indeed.
>gives me a pretty good idea of (a) your nationality
And your whining gives me a good indication of yours. You probably honestly believe it was Americans that destroyed both BB and Nortel just like many Euros believe Americans killed Nokia. Because of course native management can never be incompetent. Also keep believing BB will have an Apple like revival. Now all they are missing is one of the top five CEOs in history but hey those are easy to find. In fact BB could try to hire co CEOs again to double their chances as that worked out real good for them last time. Still Canadian telecom related companies when they blow'd up good as John Candy used to say in character they blow'd up real good.
All very interesting no doubt, but I still want to know what they did to you that you have to vent your anger management issues on a company that, so far as I know, hasn't created massive oil spills, arranged ingenious tax avoidance schemes, released clouds of poisonous chemicals, spent its money on political lobbying to rubbish AGW, run slave labour plants, or indeed any of the corporate malfeasances that might justify actual hatred.
Honestly I could care less about them personally. I just like messing with the faithful who continue to play and dance to the music on the deck of the Titanic. I once purchased one of the their phones long ago when their were far fewer smarter phone choices (a Pearl or something like that) and I returned it after a few weeks as I found something better. They never did really offer anything killer for consumer customers (as opposed to enterprise). Pretty much a meh company to all but those in the Waterloo area.
I'm hoping that this really takes off... I'll much rather give a company my bbm pin for marketing than my phone number. Its alot easier to block unwanted marketing spam and theres no cold calling since you're number is kept private.
Granted Blackberry (Phones) have been on the decline for so long that barely any (non business) people have them. But BBM is completely different
So this only works on one device at a time...Seriously, the one issue with whatsapp, and they've missed their USP?
So it works on the iphone, tried it on the android phone...switch what, I want it on both.
Also doesn't seem to have an actually, I don't want to switch, let me have another account option.
If google got their arse in gear, hangouts could take both in 3-6 months. Trouble is, hangouts needs a google id, whatsapp doesn't. BBM needs yet another account, but you can't switch.
So the problem with hangouts is you need a free account? What, you expect a bunch of disparate devices to seamlessly recognize you without the need for login credentials? Sorry, but I don't think the biometric tech is quite there yet...
BBM has always had a one-to-one ratio, and it used to be hard tied to the PIN. Switching devices 4-5 years ago was a nightmare. Now atleast you get an account that you can use to switch devices easily. BBry's underlying infrastructure would probably need a major overhaul to change that (and god knows they dont have the staff to perform one anymore).
Do what I do, and what most others do, setup a work BBM profile and a personal BBM profile and send both of those, or just use email.
Or if you know something we all don't know about multi-device-interoperability-biometric-magic, create the infrastructure, make an app and get it out there.
I don't think they want to change that.
Part of secure messaging is that if I get a message I want to know it's from Joe Bloggs, and not just someone who happened on his second phone before it logged out and, unknown to him, is playing with it. And he probably has the same expectation at my end.
With a single allowed start point and endpoint, that is a lot more secure. If I leave my BBM account on the wrong device, at least I know it isn't on the one I'm using now, and can take action. But with, for instance, Google, I can potentially be logged in in about 6 different places at the same time. That's why I don't use it for anything secure.
...yet the signup process didn't recognise the fact until after I got the activation email.
Then - having rebooted the phone for an unrelated reason - it made me enter my details again...
...so I got a second email a few hours after the first.
Doesn't bode well...
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