BlackBerry Messenger For iOS And Android Delayed
The BlackBerry Messenger was initially supposed to be released on Android last month, on September 21st, with an iOS version following later the same day, at midnight. However, things did not go exactly as planned: an earlier version of the BlackBerry Messenger (a previously unreleased version) leaked on file sharing sites and this version was installed by more than one million users, before the official launch. This led to Blacknerry’s servers overloading.
After that, the official September 21st launch was canceled and BlackBerry’s efforts concentrated on blocking users from the beta that previously leaked on file sharing sites. Andrew Bocking, BlackBerry executive vice president and head of the BlackBerry Messenger, stated in a blog post that “older version resulted in volumes of data traffic orders of magnitude higher than normal for each active user and impacted the system in abnormal ways”.
The Android and iOS versions of the BlackBerry Messenger app that were planned to be released on September 21st were supposed to fix the error with bulk data; however, Andrew Bocking said that the “only way to address the issue was to pause the roll-out for both Android and iPhone”. So even though competing apps such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber or Kik can offer their users messaging apps that make use of data plans instead of SMS texts that carriers charge a lot to use, the BlackBerry Messenger did not fix the problem.
BlackBeryy is rumored to be working together with beta testers on a working version of the BlackBerry Messenger for Android so this offers hope for a near future release rescheduling. The first video showing the Android beta version of the BlackBerry Messenger appeared 3 weeks prior to the September 21st scheduled release date. Based on that time line, we estimate a Halloween (or October 24th) release date of the revised BlackBerry Messenger version for Android and iOS.
The situation with the iOS and Android versions of the BlackBerry Messenger is pretty disastrous, but if the app will be released it can also be said it is “a comedy of errors” instead of a tragedy, if the app won’t be released. An important difference between BlackBerry’s messenger app and its competitors is represented by the fact that BlackBerry Messenger is routed through BlackBerry’s own servers and they need to be ready for the assault of users from both Android and iOS operating systems. AT the end of September, the official twitter account for the BlackBerry Messenger claimed BlackBeryy was “Still 100% committed to bringing #BBM to Android and iPhone”. It is worth mentioning the BlackBerry Messenger twitter account has more than 320,000 followers.
BlackBerry and its messenger app lost almost all of their market share to competing smartphones from APple and the many smartphones that run on Google’s Android operating system. Some analysts believe the BlackBerry Messenger will actually steal sales from devices like the BlackBerry Z30, BB10′s removal from United States T-Mobile stores and from Canada’s Rogers Mobile locations, perfectly describes how desperate BlackBerry is in a mobile market that is dominated by Android smartphones and iPhones, where recently Microsoft acquired Nokia trying to go for the third place on the market.
The Android and iOS versions of the BlackBerry Messenger were initially annoucned in May this year, at BlackBerry’s annual conference in Orlando. At the official announcement, the company did not provide an official release date for the iOs and Android versions of the BlackBerry Messenger client; instead, the company said the messenger app would be released before the end of the summer in North America, September 15th.
