BlackBerry is set to do something it has never done before–expand its proprietary chat app BBM to iOS and Android, with a launch planned for this summer. The announcement was made at the annual BlackBerry Live conference, and detailed on the BlackBerry Blog:
In the first version of multi-platform BBM, iOS and Android users are expected to be able to experience the following BBM features:
- The immediacy of BBM chats
- Multi-person chats
- Voice note sharing
- BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups of up to 30 people and share calendar, photos, files and more
The company notes there are more than 60 million monthly active users sending and receiving more than 10 billion messages per day.
Back in March of 2011 it was rumoured BBM was coming to iOS and Android, with later reports the plan was started by former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie but ultimately rejected by the board, rather to focus on development of its next generation BlackBerry 10 smartphones. He planned to offer the service to carriers in an attempt to stop the reversal of the company’s drop to the bottom.
For those with friends using BlackBerrys, this will be another way for you to chat with them, but could be a case of too little too late as most have already adopted other cross platform chat apps such as WhatsApp. Anyone excited for this?
