Blackberry’s BBM Crowned No.1 Free App In The App Store

Blackberry’s BBM Crowned No.1 Free App In The App Store

Within eight hours of its debut, Blackberry tweeted that it had reached 5 million downloads on Apple’s iOS and Android. It has now reached the top number one spot in Apple’s App Store under the free apps category in more than 75 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Indonesia and most of the Middle East. The app has also seen overwhelmingly positive reviews on Google Play and the App Store. In fact, BBM has earned 60,000 five-star reviews on Google Play from about 87,000 reviews. It was clear yesterday that BBM was seeing significant demand when BlackBerry instituted a "wait list" that allowed users to download and install the app, but wait until they got an e-mail notification before they could start firing off messages. Only users who had registered on BBM.com beforehand were able to get in immediately. Eager users had to join a queue and patiently wait for an email that allowed them to use the app in its full capacity.

BBM for iPhone is optimised for iOS7, so it'll work on updated iPhones and the new iPhone 5S and 5C. Meanwhile BBM for Android includes new features like the BBM chat widget, which allows you to keep up with chats without having to open the app. Blackberry have also announced that they intend to emulate the  BBM experience on iPhone and Android that was equal to that on BlackBerry 10. That means bringing BBM Video, BBM Voice and BBM Channels to Android and iPhone customers too.

Around six million people signed up for information about BBM on their website before the app was released. Following the botched launch in September, which resulted in one million people using unofficial apps and leaked software, as fraudsters got their act together quicker than Blackberry and began targeting eager ex-Blackberry owners with ads, spam and viruses. This was due to a failing on Blackberry’s part, when they announced the app wasn’t ready and postponed the big release day.

The botched launch was the latest in a run of bad news for the struggling Canadian firm, which is cutting 4,500 jobs, made a net loss of $965m (£600m) in the second quarter of 2013, and has agreed a $4.7bn sale to a consortium led by Fairfax Financial.

Blackberry has failed to keep pace with Apple and devices running Google Android or Microsoft's Windows Phone operating systems. It joins Nokia and Motorola in the list of failing phone companies as iOS and Android continue to dominate the market.

In September, there were reports that Blackberry was exiting the consumer market to concentrate on providing services to business customers - reports it has since played down.

But the Blackberry Messenger product - known as BBM - has proved very popular, particularly with younger users. The software offers an alternative to SMS messages - which cost money on some subscription plans - as well as other voice and screen-sharing capabilities. The app rollout is intended to address competition from Whatsapp, Viber and Skype which offer similar facilities and work across different mobile platforms.

Some analysts had warned that by allowing its software to run on rival handsets Blackberry might make its own handsets appear less attractive to the public.

Posted by George Daniels on Saturday October 26 2013, 4:47 AM EST. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Technology. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0