At last: BlackBerry's best feature is coming to iPhones and Androids
BlackBerry messenger is about to become a little less exclusive
The words "exciting" and "BlackBerry" haven't been used together in a long time, but this occasion might fit the bill. In an exciting bit of news, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins announced Tuesday that BlackBerry Messenger — the phone's fast and secure messaging client — will be ported over to iOS and Android later this summer. And better still, it's going to be free.
"We will make BBM available as the premier multiplatform messaging solution all around the globe," said Heins. "This is such a great experience, it's just too good to keep it only to ourselves."
Heins has a long way to go to global dominance: PC Mag reports that because the app has so-far been a BlackBerry exclusive, BBM currently supports a small fraction of the users commanded by the competition — about 60 million BBMers total. "It's dwarfed by Android/iOS competitors like WhatsApp and Viber, which measure their user bases in the hundreds of millions," writes PC Mag's Sascha Segan. "But BBM users are highly engaged, sending and receiving more than 10 billion messages per day."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But what makes BBM better than, say, iMessage, WhatsApp, or boring ol' SMS texts? It's fast. After swapping pins, messages are rattled off near instantly without a text limit.
And unlike Apple's iMessage, its communication network is notoriously secure and reliable. In 2011, The Guardian reported that BBM was the messaging service du jour for London rioters, who used it to organize rallies under the radar of the authorities:
One Crackberry forum poster claims that part of BBM's appeal is the service feels "like an exclusive club." Only the "cool people" with BlackBerry can use it. "I use it to keep in touch with friends and family." Although that club is about to get decidedly less cool and exclusive, it does give us a clearer view of the path forward for BlackBerry — the company — which looks to be licensing its communications services out to larger, more ubiquitous mobile platforms.
Let's hope email is next.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Cicada-geddon: the fungus that controls insects like 'zombies'
Under The Radar Expert says bugs will develop 'hypersexualisation' despite their genitals falling off
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
'Voters know Biden and Trump all too well'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Is the Gaza war tearing US university campuses apart?
Today's Big Question Protests at Columbia University, other institutions, pit free speech against student safety
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published