bbm
Latest
BlackBerry Messenger shuts down for good today
Today, Emtek pulls the plug on BlackBerry Messenger. The company announced last month that it would shut down the consumer service, which has been steadily losing users and failing to attract new ones. As a consolation for diehard fans, BlackBerry opened BBM Enterprise, its enterprise-grade encrypted Messenger (BBMe), for personal use. That's available on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac.
BlackBerry Messenger is shutting down in May
BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for consumers is shutting down for good on May 31st. When Indonesia-based media conglomerate Emtek took over its development in 2016, it redesigned the app with modern features in hopes that it can better compete with more popular chat applications these days. Unfortunately, its efforts failed to drum up enough interest in the new BBM.
Uber lands on BlackBerry Messenger, confusing everyone
The next time you whip out BBM, you'll be able to order an Uber from within the app -- which would be handy if anyone still used BBM. Well, it's evidently still a thing, at least in parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, anyway. Elsewhere, Blackberry's baby has long been forgotten. Now, more than two years since Facebook Messenger got Uber integration, BBM is catching up. Better late than never.
BlackBerry Messenger Enterprise promises secure comms for business
Faulting BlackBerry for its lack of apps or antiquated design ideas was fair, but the firm's dedication to security spoke for itself. The company is going to take that reputation and use it to retool BlackBerry Messenger as an enterprise-level communications platform. Appropriately dubbed BBM Enterprise, the app offers end-to-end encryption for all communication methods; voice, video and text-based comms will all be secure.
BlackBerry is done making smartphones
In BlackBerry's latest quarterly financials released today, the company revealed it's getting out of the hardware business once and for all, choosing instead to "outsource that function to partners." It's not a huge shock given BlackBerry CEO John Chen has foreshadowed the cut and run several times. Earlier this year, he warned that if hardware wasn't making a profit by September it would be time to call it quits, and he's kept his word after the Mobility Solutions division posted an $8 million loss for this past quarter. This doesn't mean we've seen the last of BlackBerry handsets, though; they just won't be produced in-house anymore.
BBM Video for Android and iPhone is now out in Asia-Pacific
Most BBM users finally have access to the app's video calling capability. BlackBerry has released the feature for Android and iOS in Asia-Pacific, which is apparently home to its biggest userbase. The company said it made cross-platform video calls available in the US and Canada first, because it wanted to be able to fix bugs before it reaches more people. Since video calling is now stable, the phonemaker can roll it out to the rest of world.
Blackberry BBM video calling comes to Android and iOS
There are lots of ways to make video calls, including Skype, Hangouts and Facebook Messenger. But if you're still wedded to BlackBerry's rapidly declining ecosystem, you can make video calls to your Android and iOS pals via beta versions of the BBM messaging app for those platforms. There is no sign-up, fee or approval required for the feature, but it will only be in Canada and the US for now, ostensibly to shake out any beta bugs. However, BlackBerry says the feature will roll out globally in July.
Canadian police used BlackBerry's key to unlock BBM messages
BlackBerry's big selling point is its stance on mobile security, but a report from Vice and Motherboard reveals at least one national police force were able to bypass that security. A cache of documents revealed that Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police had the ability to intercept and crack encrypted messages sent through BlackBerry's BBM service. The RCMP's findings in an operation called Project Clemenza led to seven men confessing their roles in a murder conspiracy, but over 1 million messages were captured and unlocked by a server in Ottawa along the way.
BlackBerry is leaving Pakistan over demands for backdoor access
BlackBerry has announced it's formally shutting down shop in Pakistan over demands from the country's Telecommunications Authority that backdoor access be granted to the company's encrypted services. Back in July, local carriers were ordered to shut off BlackBerry Enterprise Service from the end of November, because "security reasons." While the order has been pushed back to the end of the year, Pakistan's government isn't budging, leaving BlackBerry no other option but to abandon the country. As the company explains, "remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users' privacy. That is a compromise we are not willing to make."
BBM app lands on Apple Watch before WhatsApp
Apps are continuing to trickle into Apple's wearable, with recent standouts including Airbnb, Google and...BlackBerry? The company once called RIM has announced Apple Watch support for its messaging service, BBM. When reading the product description on the iTunes store, you find that the companion app will allow you to share photos and voice notes, see when people are responding to your messages, and even offer groundbreaking features like delivered and read receipts. There isn't a wide variety of alternatives available on the Apple Watch at the moment -- with WhatsApp and Facebook messanger still missing from the app store -- but maybe there's a reason for that. What's your PIN? Let's discuss this some more through our wearables. [Thanks, Sterling Jordan!]
BBM's $1 privacy add-on offers private chat, message editing
BlackBerry's introducing a $1 privacy subscription for folks who continue to use Messenger on iOS, Android and its own platform. It will totally replace the old "timed and retracted messages" option, with "private chat" feature as its main draw. Private chats strip everyone's name and icon in that window and automatically disappear after a certain period of inactivity to protect people from busybodies who love going through someone else's phone and -- hurts to admit they exist, but they do -- backstabbers. In addition to private chat, the subscription also gives users the power to edit messages and includes the old timed and retracted messaging features.
BlackBerry Messenger helps uncover a Brazilian corruption scandal
Some less-than-ethical businesspeople are learning the hard way that even secure messaging systems aren't all that private. Brazilian authorities have used BlackBerry Messenger records (obtained through warrants and BlackBerry's help) to level corruption charges against over 100 people skimming money from the country's state-owned oil company, Petrobras. The chats not only confirmed relationships between culprits, but indicated when people were arranging cash drop-offs and other suspicious activities. There aren't any convictions just yet, but it may be hard for at least some suspects to deny that they're involved.
BlackBerry CEO demands Apple make iMessage cross-platform
BlackBerry is doing its best to mount a comeback in the face of overwhelming competition from iOS and Android devices. The BlackBerry Classic is a step in the right direction, but the fact remains that app support is a huge problem, and porting apps to BlackBerry's platform just isn't a high priority for, well, basically anyone. But rather than letting the market dictate what devices are the most important to support, BlackBerry CEO John Chen is hoping regulators will step in and force companies like Apple to make its exclusive apps available on all platforms. No, I'm not kidding -- Chen wants Apple to make iMessage a standalone app on non-Apple platforms, including BlackBerry. Chen even goes so far as to say companies like Apple and Netflix are "discriminating against BlackBerry customers" by failing to make their services available universally across all platforms. Of course, Chen is in a great position to make such accusations thanks to the fact that BlackBerry brought its once-exclusive BBM messaging service to iOS and Android in 2013. That said, it's hard to imagine BBM would have ventured across the aisle if BlackBerry wasn't horrifically desperate for the tech crowd to consider BlackBerry a legitimate option whatsoever, so take Chen's perceived openness with a massive boulder of salt.
BlackBerry will invade your wrist by bringing BBM to Android Wear
Messaging services like WhatsApp have slowly been trickling onto our extremities via Android Wear for what feels like ages now, so is it really any surprise that BlackBerry's getting in on the action now too? At a press breakfast earlier this morning, the company took a few moments to highlight its tentative plan to bring BBM to Google's wearables. Even in its unfinished state, the whole shebang works just the way you'd expect it to: You'll be able to view and accept friend invites right from your wrist, and speak your responses aloud for Google's machine brains to render into text. And the ETA for BBM's touchdown on your watch? BlackBerry's Jeff Gadway says you'll be able to nab it sometime in "early 2015," so you'd better make sure your contacts are in order. Just in case you're itching to see the early concept in action, go ahead a take a peek after the break -- you won't regret it.
BlackBerry jumps on reports of iMessage spam to tout the benefits of BBM
Given the recent spate of stories centering on iMessage being a haven for spammers, the official BlackBerry Blog seized the opportunity to pen a post detailing 5 reasons why BlackBerry's own BBM messaging service is impervious to the spam reportedly affecting iMessage users. 3) BBM Protected ups the security ante. Privacy is the main issue with iMessage and spam. BBM protects your privacy by only allowing users to send messages to approved contacts. Our secure enterprise messaging service, BBM Protected, takes it a step further by adding an advanced layer of encryption. This ensures your messages aren't vulnerable to spying or hacking while being transmitted. 4) BBM empowers you to protect yourself from unsolicited messages. On the rare chance that you get spam or an unwanted ad, you only need to block the person from your contact list and refuse further attempts to reach you in the future. Now there's no need to mock BlackBerry because, let's face it, it's not as if the company poses much of a threat anymore to Apple or any other current player in the mobile space. But still, it's remarkable how far the mighty have fallen. BBM used to be one of RIM's crown jewels, and now the company finds itself piggybacking on tenuous reports of iMessage spam in an effort to convince users to give it a spin. Now that's not to say that BBM is an utterly desolate ghost town. On the contrary, BlackBerry noted last September that the service handles 10 billion messages every day. That's ostensibly impressive until you realize that WhatsApp as of January, 2014 was handling 50 billion messages a day. BlackBerry's BBM app for iOS originally launched about 11 months ago, and though it features some compelling features and experienced an initial wave of popularity, there's no evidence to suggest that it can stem the growing number of users opting for iMessage and other messaging options, blog lists be damned.
BlackBerry opens BBM for Windows Phone beta
"We've gotten an incredible number of requests for BBM to come to Windows Phone," BlackBerry proclaimed in its post announcing BBM for Windows Phone beta today. Whether that means 10 or 10,000 of you have been begging for the service is unclear, but either way, it's just about here. You'll get the usual list of features, such as individual and group chats, contacts and feeds, albeit with a refreshed Windows Phone-esque UI. BBM Voice, Channels and Glympse location sharing won't be available initially, however. You can sign up for access to the limited beta today, or wait for BlackBerry to open up access to everyone within the next few weeks.
BlackBerry taking 'serious look' at bringing BBM to desktops
Remember when BlackBerry was hesitant to let BBM wander to other platforms? So do we, but now that the company has committed to cross-platform support by pushing its messaging service to ecosystems like iOS and Android (including the Nokia X series), it isn't stopping there. Recently we've heard that it's heading to Windows Phone in the coming months, and in an interview with Reuters BlackBerry CEO John Chen mentioned that his team is "taking a very serious look" at bringing the service to the desktop as well. Such a move would make it possible to start a conversation on your PC and finish it on your mobile -- or vice versa. It's a logical strategy for BBM, which enjoyed an uptick of 20 million new users when the service launched on iOS and Android, but has stayed stagnant at 85 million monthly active users in the past month. It's hard to say if the addition of desktop support will trigger new growth, but given the breadth of platform availability, it will at the very least give users more incentive to stick around.
BBM to let you share photos in multi-person chats and transfer larger files
BlackBerry has been on a BBM roll lately, unleashing the messaging service on not just iOS and Android but Windows Phone as well. However, that's not all that's up the Waterloo company's sleeve. A new version of BBM is in the pipeline, and it'll have a few new features that will delight the BBM power users amongst you. For one thing, you'll finally be able to share photos in multi person chats, plus you'll get the ability to send files that are up to 16MB in size -- the current limit is 6MB. In a response to customer feedback, BlackBerry also promises that the size of the emoticons will be bigger. There's no clear timeline on just when this update will roll out, but we're just happy that BlackBerry has plans to improve its messaging app beyond mere stickers.
BlackBerry could turn BBM into a payments platform
BlackBerry's showing off its plans to woo back all of the customers who ditched it during the BB10 transition. In addition to two new handsets, the Canadian outfit is also considering turning BBM into a mobile payments platform in the emerging markets where it still has traction. In a chat with Re/code, enterprise chief John Sims said that BlackBerry is meeting with partners and "exploring the market." It wouldn't be the first time the company has waded into the mobile-money lake either, considering that it teamed up with an Indonesian bank to test BBM-based peer-to-peer fund transfers back in 2012. As long as it'll enable us to split the dinner bill without looking up from our phones, we're up for it.
BBM coming to Windows Phones this summer
BlackBerry is slowly, but surely covering all its bases in an effort to turn BBM into a cross-platform messaging monster. The quest to return the standard-bearer to its former glory started with iOS and Android, but this summer it'll be coming to Windows Phones as well. According to the Canadian company, it will ship with all the same functionality as its counterparts on other OSes, including stickers and voice. More importantly though, BBM Groups (which allows you to chat with up to 50 people at once) and Channels will be included as BlackBerry works to fight off challenges from the likes of WhatsApp and Hangouts. Sadly those are all the details we have for now, but hopefully Waterloo will lock down a release date sooner, rather than later.