BBM for iOS and Android to Launch This Summer | Hacker News Reader

BBM for iOS and Android to Launch This Summer

blogs.blackberry.com

73 pointsfudged7156 comments

The clever thing about iMessage is that no-one even knows they are using it. On iOS at least, that's going to make it very hard to beat.

On Android there is more scope, but if, as expected, Google launch their cross-platform messaging service at IO, it'll be in direct competition with BBM. It'll be interesting to see if either brings a killer feature- I have a horrible suspicion that Blackberry will deliberately hobble their featureset on Android and iOS in order to push people towards Blackberry devices. That would be a horrible, horrible mistake.

But the daft thing about iMessage is that no-one even knows they are using it. Most non-tech people I know don't even know there are two types of message. They've installed Whatsapp to message their friends on iPhones. When I say that iMessage is free they don't really get it at all.

I feel the same way about iCloud. I know it is there and it backs up some of my data. I wouldn't be able to tell you which apps use iCloud and what data it is storing though. I don't think it is obvious enough to the end users, it is too transparent, which creates confusion and misunderstanding. I've given up on iCloud...

> The clever thing about iMessage is that no-one even knows they are using it. On iOS at least, that's going to make it very hard to beat.

It's only clever if it is actually solves the problem people are having. If not, then it's an anti-feature. The only question is whether iPhone users have non-iPhone owning friends/family or if iPhone users all have unlimiting texting plans. I'm guessing a significant portion don't fall into one of those two categories.

iPhone owner who doesn't have a texting plan at all here. I avoid iMessage like the plague because it's way too easy to accidentally send texts that cost me $0.25 a pop. I don't want to care what kind of phone my friends have, particularly when screwing it up costs me money.

If any of you have followed my posts, you'll know that I've been a big fan of what BlackBerry have been doing with their platform.

I think this is a bold move on the part of BlackBerry and I'm not sure how it will play out. On the one hand, the problem many users had with being on BlackBerry is that their non-BlackBerry using friends couldn't be reached on BBM. On the other hand, BBM is also the thing keeping some users from jumping to another platform. I think BlackBerry is hoping the net migration rate is in their favour, and for their sake I hope it's true.

Personally, I love my Z10, and it fits my workflow wonderfully. It's also a sheer joy to develop for. I think there are 10s of millions who agree with me. Will it be a larger number than iOS and Android users? Likely not, but I'm not sure it has to be.

For those knocking the platform, at least try it before you do. And keep an open mind about it, knowing that it fits for many people. I love what iPhone and Android do, but they're just not for me.

Finally, everyone needs to understand that BBM is much more than a messaging platform. While it may have similarities with the competitors mentioned, but the fact is that it does things that no one else has matched. The tight integration at the OS level allows really amazing things to be done by application developers. With that in mind, the BBM released on other platforms will likely be mostly about messaging simply due to the OS integration required. Doable on Android, hard on iOS.

All in all, there's a lot of excitement here at BlackBerry Live. I think they're doing some amazing things with the platform, and I am happy to continue supporting and championing them.

This might be a little too late (more like a year or 2) with the multitude of IM apps out there like Whatsapp, Line, Viber in addition to iMessage, Facebook Messenger & Google's rumored new app, Babel.

Pretty much everyone I know uses WhatsApp (which has replaced a few google groups/yahoo groups for me) and Facebook messenger.

I have long been a BlackBerry fan. It was difficult to let go of BBM. My Torch was simply to make phone calls, send emails, listen to music and instant message (bbm). It did those things much better than any one device. I made the switch to Android (SGN II) earlier this year. When BB10 launched, I got the z10. I figured it would solve all the other problems. I was wrong. I tried to return the device; I couldn't. I tried to sell it; didn't happen. So I kept it as my secondary device; simply for BBM.

Now (summer), why in the world would I need BB hardware?

I'm curious, what problems had you hoped the Z10 would solve, and in what way did it fall short? I'm considering the switch.

Particularly rich media streaming and basic application availability.

BB10 now allows you to browse the web without fault (and includes Flash). Things like banking applications I couldn't live without. Of the advertised "thousands and thousands" of applications in BlackBerry World, I have only downloaded two (2).

Unfortunately the things that previous versions of BBOS were great at (phone, messaging, heat dissipation, sound amplification) were no where to be found on BB10.

Good for them! I'm happy for all their engineers, designers and people. That's how you stay relevant or at least carve out some value from a dying tech business.

Blackberry was dying a year ago. They're doing quite well now.

Oh they are ? I seriously was thinking it is still downhill for RIM. Glad to know they still have hope.

They've re-branded and launched a new mobile OS and two accompanying handsets to pretty decent acclaim.

That, and their stock value has doubled in the past 6 months.

The difference between iMessage and BBM is reliability. Anyone who has used iMessage on multiple devices will no doubt attest to the delivery issues.

I'm fairly ok with Keynote presentations taking time to sync down or issues with photostream syncing but when a message from my wife asking me to pick up the kids from school comes in three hours later then I have a massive issue with the product.

Why does apple find it so hard to get online services right?

Ironically in my experience BBM 'just works' the way Apple products used to.

By the way I would not be surprised to see Apple blocking BBM as it duplicates existing functionality on IOS

I've had an iPhone since iMessage came out & I can recall no delivery issues (unless you count when my iPad gets a message a few seconds before my iPhone).

I've had issues with repeat delivery of messages days later, and different devices getting messages hours apart before.

This would have killed iMessage a year ago.

Interesting. I've used Beluga, WhatsApp, Brightkite and GroupMe, none of which were ever truly satisfying, mostly because there's no strong network effect in place - anyone I messaged with these apps was someone I bugged to install and use it.

BBM brings to the table a sizable entrenched user base. I agree with the person that said this would have been an iMessage killer a year ago. But this will be crossplatform and iMessage is not. Good for us who aren't living entirely in the Apple ecosystem.

Interesting, here in Germany literally everybody I know uses WhatsApp. Especially the non-tech people. (Well, everybody under 45. Those without smartphones are excluded, of course)

Same for India. Everyone and their mom uses WhatsApp

Same for Mexico.

Same for Rwanda

Same in Honduras

Same for Singapore

Huh. In my part of the US, it seems the only people who use it are kids who have iPod touches and no cell phones.

WhatsApp requires a phone number and will not work on iPod touch or iPad.

Huh, must be some other similar service then. I suppose I see it never, then.

http://www.redmondpie.com/whatsapp-for-ipad-ipad-2-whatspad-...

I can't help feeling that they're at least a year too late. At one point, BBM was used by a lot of people. A year ago there was a void for multimedia messaging and group messaging that wasn't really filled by anything, but Whatsapp has completely filled that space. Everyone I know (twenty something graduates in the UK) uses it. That kind of market penetration is hard to match, even with a brand like Blackberry.

I think the market is somewhat different in the US. My impression is that Whatsapp has a much smaller market penetration. I downloaded it to talk to one friend, only one other person in my 200+ contact phonebook had it.

"Today, BlackBerry also announced BBM Channels, a new social engagement platform within BBM that will allow customers to connect with the businesses, brands, celebrities and groups they are passionate about."

Why? Does anyone actually want to connect with, e.g. Target, over BBM? Isn't BBM useful for chatting with friends? Why would they poison it by allowing "brands" onto the platform?

You could say the same about Twitter, but Target has over 553k followers.

Except that Twitter is a completely different use-case. I tweet when I want the world to hear something. I send a BBM message when I want one or two of my friends to hear something.

This is going to make it easy for the blackberry users to switch to android/ iOS. The just have to buy their non blackberry device of choice, get used to it with out loosing their friends and fellow BBM users. As simple as that. Keyboard and BBM was a major limiting factor to a hardcore BB fan. Now I think they can switch with a bit more of ease :)

I don't think BBM has the same influence of BB users that once did thanks to WhatsApp and other cross-platform messengers. I think at this point it's to BB's advantage to make it easier for their users to communicate with non-BB phones via BBM.

And, I think this is why they've done it. If it had been year or two ago it would have been in the same space as WhatsApp et. al. Now, it simply provides a way for BB users to talk with their non-BB counterparts through a preferred app and if it gets a few users back into BB world, then great.

I can't help but think that they should've done this 2 years ago. While it's true that this could have accelerated the exodus of users from BB to iOS/Android, I think a cross-platform, successful BBM would've been an invaluable beachhead in the mobile environment for RIM as their device marketshare plummeted. BBM could have then served as means of keeping users who gave up their BlackBerries in the BB ecosystem and helped to attract these users back to the BB platform when their latest, more modern devices were released.

At this point, at least among young people, I feel most former BBM users may have simply moved on and the prospect of using BBM on their new devices may just not be an interesting one anymore. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, though. Regardless, I think it's a good choice on RIM's part to launch a multiplatform BBM, I just feel like it would've been much more valuable to have done it a lot sooner.

just call it what it is, another instant messaging network, that does nothing but simply use the net and your data to send messages under guise of a crpytic ridiculous PIN number/account. Can't we just stick to contact lists of people's names and emails and IM that way..none of these 'numbers' (phone, pin etc).

Meanwhile MS/outlook.com announces interoperability with gTalk...aka XMPP.... and the open net pushes forward.

This is an interesting opinion. Are you saying that you don't want to have more than a name and an email address for a contact and just have all communication apps use the email address as the identifier?

I had thought this too at one point until I realized that having more than one identifier implicitly allows me to segment my communications in an easy way. For instance, I can give my email address to Macy's instead of my phone number, and I know I'll only get asynchronous textual information from them. But I can give my phone number to someone at a bar, and know that I am implicitly allowing them to interrupt me with a call or text message.

So I get a communications permissions system for free when I have more than one identifier. But clearly it's not efficient to have 100 different identifiers, one for each network. So we need to settle somewhere in the middle I think.

I meant keeping our contact lists basic and of real information like names and an email (email being a good base block for net stuff/identification/comms because the domain etc) instead of 10 other accounts to keep track of for all our contact list/address book entries.

On the 'communications permissions system' tip, yeah, ok, useful to direct certain things via different networks, but instead of numbers and cryptic pins, keep it to names.... Address Book entry: Name & facebook: ChrisArchitect email, IM: ...@....com (translates to a searchable contact on other nets like twitter too)

... oh and furthermore, all using base internet technologies and IP networks instead of seperate private nets and god forbid the cellular network used for SMS that should be dead by now. Thus bringing interoperability etc too

I think BB will pull a SEGA.

That's sort of what it looks like at this point. They have missed the boat so many times now I really don't see any other way for them to hold onto something.

If you can't pull a Nintendo, there's no shame in going SEGA.

What does pulling a Nintendo mean?

I was wondering the same. I've always put Nintendo and Apple in the same category.

Likes to release a bunch of proprietary hardware. Can't keep the same goddamned power/video connector from one console to the next. Likes their walled garden. Likes making everything perhaps a bit too easy to the point of taking away options. Tries going for the "casual / mainstream" market, forgoing everyone else.

I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to not group them, but I like my fantasy.

Blue Ocean Strategy, which is interesting why you brought up Apple. Nintendo came out of nowhere with the Wii and the DS. Apple, similarly, is all about innovation.

I remember a few years back all my friends had Blackberries and we could all sit in a room and have full conversations over bbm, excluding those without blackberries. Now we all are split over Android and iOS but we all use whatsapp and groupme.

BBM was great for instant messaging back in the day, but it's been out of the game for too long now.

BBM is still fundamentally flawed by the fact that Rim controls it. Do I trust Rim? Not inherently. And with the recent post by Moxie regarding messaging interception I don't understand why anyone would favor giving a large corporation a single point of inspection that will, likely, not be understood if it's users are sharing I the clear or not. All of these apps blow from that perspective which is why I use none of them.

yes, but that is the problem with all (popular) messengers. Just look at the flaws of WhatsApp. Or, do you trust Google, Microsoft (Skype) or Apple?

"Why are we doing this now? It's a statement of confidence."

Not desperation, but confidence. Riiiiiight.

Am I the only one who's not buying this?

What's that? Whatsapp?

No its BBM, it's a messaging system created by BlackBerry that came pre-installed on their devices.

What's BlackBerry?

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