BBM Coming To iOS and Android 146
grub writes writes with news that BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has announced that BBM (BlackBerry Messenger, one of the favorite features of BlackBerry device-owners) will soon be coming to rival mobile operating systems. Devices running iOS 6 and Android ICS or later will be supported, pending approval with the App Store and Google Play.
"BBM uses carrier data networks to pass secure messages back and forth through its servers to other BlackBerry users. The service recently gained the ability to make phone calls, conduct video chats and even share screen tops with other BBM users (requires BlackBerry 10). Normal chat and group chats will be the first features to hit the Android and iOS BBM apps, followed by the others (including voice and video) during the course of the year. BBM for Android and iOS will be free."
The company also unveiled a new smartphone today: the Q5. It's a budget device intended for emerging markets.
So? (Score:2, Interesting)
is it supposed to make me buy a new blackberry?
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't feel stuck with my BB10 device at all. It's far better than my last phone, an Android piece of junk that lagged with a horrible, clunky UI and needed to be put on the charger three times a day. It makes the iPhone look like a toy.
Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
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Who the hell cares? I have a BB10 device for work a Galaxy s3 as my personal phone. Either will do whatever I want, when I want. They are only toys if you use as them as toys.
My wife has a work issued iPhone 4s. It also does anything and everything she wants.
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I've been able to chat with people with BBs for years now. We all use something called XMPP. SMSs work fine as well.
Honestly, only BB users loves BBM so much. Users of other OS's don't care much for it.
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The almost 1 billion people using Android and the nearly equal amount on iOS beg to disagree. Heck 189 million feature phones shipped last quarter- even they dwarf you. Your platform is irrelevant, and that's not even counting how out of touch with technology its management is (I work in the industry- as everyone else was touting how amazing the new smart phones were they were touting as a feature how little data their users used as a selling point).
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Oh look over there, something new and shiny! And 1 billion people jump ship in a heartbeat.
Counting number of users on a platform is irrelevant considering how quickly those numbers change.
BB was once the king of smartphones, and then Apple came out with something shiny and new and people jumped ship.
Google came out with something shiny and new and people jumped ship.
All it takes is for a new shiny bauble to appear in the consumer electronics world and 1 billion people will simply vanish from one platform
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, BB was never the king- Symbian was. It always crushed BB worldwide.
Secondly, do you know how ridiculous you sound claiming that 1 billion people jump on anything in a heartbeat? These numbers don't grow fast, it took years to grow when smartphones had a huge advantage in features vs the competition (feature phones) and are only just now overtaking them in total. Moving those numbers when comparing apples to apples between smartphones is nearly impossible- Android only overtook Apple by creating a low end market.
Secondly, it was totally to do with features. BB was a powerful company that rested on their laurels. They didn't try to drive to the mass market, they were happy with the business market. When they got piledriven by Apple and Android they didn't react quickly. People wanted a great web browser, apps, a responsive touch screen UI, etc. BB took a long time to deliver, and arguably still doesn't. They tried dumb ideas like a tablet that needed to be connected to a BB phone to work. And it didn't even have email when it released!
They have enough cash that a resurrection is possible, they aren't going to dissolve in the next year or so. But for that to happen upper management needs to realize that the market has passed them up and that they need to respond. I've seen no recognition of that from them. And as time goes on it will be harder and harder to catch up, as they'll be so far behind in app ecosystems that they'll be unable to capture new consumers.
So yeah, BB is a joke.
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BB was once the king of smartphones, and then Apple came out with something shiny and new and people jumped ship. Google came out with something shiny and new and people jumped ship
there's a really huge distinction here: customers actually jumped ship from BB to other companies - the number of BB users plunged dramatically. But nobody has "jumped ship" from apple or android - while the market share shifts, both companies have exploding customer base (obv there are people switching back and forth, but overall trends are sky high for both companies). so no, BB is not the same as iOS or Goog
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the number of BB users plunged dramatically.
The 1st quarter of 2013 is the first time in RIM/BlackBerry history they have ever posted a loss of subscribers [wikipedia.org] (Down to 76 million from 79 million in 4th quarter 2012) Despite the drop they actually posted a profit. [gigaom.com]
Their market share has shrunk because the market for smartphones has exploded and BlackBerry's growth has remained constant.
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"BB was once the king of smartphones, and then Apple came out with something shiny and new and people jumped ship."
Another child giving a history lesson on /.
BB was not successful in smartphones, it was successful appealing to business email users in an era before smartphones. A BB was more an evolution of the pager that was uniquely useful to business. It was not a smartphone though it tried poorly to become one.
People who switched to the iPhone were not BB users as a group, they were Apple users and sma
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Oh look over there, something new and shiny! And 1 billion people jump ship in a heartbeat.
Windows Phone is both new and shiny, but the adoption has been slow. There's more to it than that.
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The almost 1 billion people using Android and the nearly equal amount on iOS beg to disagree.
Disagree with what?
I work in the industry
Gold star for you.
as everyone else was touting how amazing the new smart phones were they were touting as a feature how little data their users used as a selling point
Which is what their customers were asking for because data was prohibitively expensive. So much so only businesses and the affluent could afford it. You're talking about something that happened 7 years ago like it happened today.
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No, they weren't. This was happening TWO YEARS AGO. At a meeting with TELECOMs. Telecoms want people to use more data, not less- they want to sell streaming video services, extra gigabytes, exclusive content, etc. Basically they were trying to push their phones by touting that their customers would make the telecom less money than other phones. It was ridiculous.
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and you still didn't answer my question.
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And they'd like a pony too. Pink if possible.
Sure, they'd love to have you pay them and not use it. But given a choice between low usage low pay and high usage high pay with the ability to sell additional services, they want the second. They really don't care about the bandwidth used by the messaging app, which was all they could talk about.
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No, Telecoms want users to PAY for more data and not use it because it saturates their networks. For someone who works in the industry you seem to know very little about it.
and you still didn't answer my question.
"Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped conjure up the stolen data tapes..."
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The almost 1 billion people using Android and the nearly equal amount on iOS beg to disagree.
The total number of smartphone users worldwide is only around 1 billion.
Apple itself has not even passed the 350 millionth phone mark in it's total sales from day one. And that doesn't include how many people have went from the iPhone 3 to 4 to 5 now. Just total headset sales.
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Android is hitting the 1 billion point inside of a few months. They're seeing 1.5M activations per day. 357M Android devices were shipped in 2012.
http://bgr.com/2012/09/12/android-cumulative-shipments-2013-1-billion-units/ [bgr.com]
http://news.yahoo.com/googles-schmidt-sees-1-billion-android-phones-9-162220903--sector.html [yahoo.com]
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How many of them are in the scrapheap of yesteryear's technology though? The same question could be asked of iPhone.
Just because they shipped that many, doesn't mean they are still in use.
Re: So? (Score:2)
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I also asked about Android, which you completely neglected to answer. There's been heaps of devices from manufacturers that shipped with obsolete software, with upgrades never announced nor delivered.
How many of those are still in use? How's the battery holding up on 3 year old devices after daily charge cycles?
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I also asked about Android, which you completely neglected to answer. There's been heaps of devices from manufacturers that shipped with obsolete software, with upgrades never announced nor delivered.
How many of those are still in use? How's the battery holding up on 3 year old devices after daily charge cycles?
Nope, I did. Even those phone with android 2.3.x can do most of things that 4.1.x can, including NFC and stuff. You're mixing up feature with function. Battery? My N9 need to be daily charged, So does my Onyx 9700. I can get it to last for 2 days if I stick it to edge, but what smartphone uses edge? Even cheaply made chinese androids can get H+. Not much of a difference really
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[...]They're seeing 1.5M activations per day. [...]
How about deactivations? How many of those new devices replace discarted/broken old ones? I don't think 1.5M activations means 1.5M new users, the latter is probably way less.
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No, its suppose to secure the BES server market which makes them more money than their phone.
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60, 000, 000 people seem to based on their active user numbers they released.
It was inevitable ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It was inevitable ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I'll admit my ignorance up front before I ask ... why was it too important?
It's basically a proprietary version of SMS isn't it? And as I recall they've bent over for the Indian government and probably others to allow a MITM-type interception, and have probably done it for others now that they've set the precedent.
So, what benefit is there to me as someone with an Android phone to be able to use BBM? Does it actually get me something extra that I don't have now?
This seems more like a desperate attempt to make one of their few distinguishing features available to others, but I'm just not sure of what the benefit of that feature is for most people.
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So, I'll admit my ignorance up front before I ask ... why was it too important?
Its important to its existing base of users, they want to continue using it.
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They gave India what every other government gets: consumer messages when proper legal channels are followed. This isn't new or surprising, it's required by law. Every messaging platform provides it.
They have not and cannot give access to business messages because they do not own the keys that businesses use to encrypt their data within BES. So if you're using bes for BBM, you're still safe.
If you aren't, you were never safe from a subpoena. If there is no subpoena your data is not interceptable even
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Which is why i run my own XMPP server... Some trusted friends have accounts on my server, while others run their own individual servers.
That way i only need to trust the person i'm talking to (which is implicit anyway), and not a third party.
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BBM is a very widely used online service a bit like Google Talk, Twitter etc.
Since Twitter is currently valued at around 20 billion and RIM/Blackberry at 7.7 billion dollars, salvaging the BBM service is probably smart.
That said, they should have done this years ago as it was pretty obvious:
- BBM was everywhere
- it was desirable (reasonably easy and lets you reach many people easily, no per message charge)
- iPhones and Androids were starting to be everywhere too and make BBM less desirable
So this is most li
Re:One word: encryption (Score:5, Interesting)
Oooh, encryption, encryption which they'll open up for governments to look at upon demand. I would feel absolutely confident in using encryption which can be bypassed like it wasn't there.
I mean, if it's encrypted it must be secure and good, right?
No, because since they can (and do) bypass it, their encryption is utterly useless. They've already demonstrated they can and will obviate your encryption.
So, I ask again, why is BBM so important? Because your argument for encryption is garbage when they can step around that.
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You can set up your own BES and be the sole holder of the encryption key. I suppose some kind of government intrusion is possible (key loggers, cameras pointed at your phone, whatever), but if the government is motivated enough to go that far, you probably shouldn't be using a cell phone to make your secret plans. For the rest of us, it's plenty fine.
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BBM goes through their network, not via your BES...
Incidentally, pull the battery out of your blackberry... Now put it back in, power it up and watch what it does...
It boots, then starts talking to your BES and retrieving mail in the background *before* you have unlocked the device. Therefore:
The unlock requirement is enforced by the device itself.
The keys necessary to access your BES and the encrypted data on the device are stored on the device itself.
This is known as client side security, and i shouldn't
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Where's the protocol's formal specifiction? Where's the source for the reference client implemention? And the server one?
Without any of those, there's no way to prove that what you're saying is true.
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If the US/Canadian/NATO governments knew that the crypto could be broken, they wouldn't give RIM certifications:
And those governments are using the exact same server software that they'd sell to you or me?
Maybe BlackBerry is as secure as people claim them to be. I certainly hope so! But I absolutely would not take a proprietary encryption vendor's word for it.
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Oooh, encryption, encryption which they'll open up for governments to look at upon demand. I would feel absolutely confident in using encryption which can be bypassed like it wasn't there.
I mean, if it's encrypted it must be secure and good, right?
No, because since they can (and do) bypass it, their encryption is utterly useless. They've already demonstrated they can and will obviate your encryption.
So, I ask again, why is BBM so important? Because your argument for encryption is garbage when they can step around that.
It depends on if these new apps can join a BES (blackberry enterprise server) BBM system. In that mode, the encryption is maintained privately on the server, not by BB, Inc. and therefore it is theoretically secure. I say theoretically since there is still no guarantee that there is not a backdoor present which allows for snooping of intercepted messages anyway...
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BES is a closed source app running on a windows server, so your use of the word "theoretically" is extremely appropriate here. It might provide secure encryption, but it'll be pretty hard to tell for certain.
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Global reach... Cellular carriers pay a ton of money to pass SMS between carriers when they don't have a peering agreement, which is why a lot of cellular providers all over the world either don't offer international SMS, or charge a lot for it.
That's changing though... the carrier I'm with has peering agreements with enough carriers around the world that they give me unlimited international MMS/SMS messaging included in the base plan (even the $25/mo entry level plan).
3 years ago, BBM on my Android device
Re:One word: encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
Google Talk also lets me make free international long distance phone calls, while still only has the same limitations that BBM does: it's effectively insecure and only works with other people who subscribe to it.
Not entirely true. It works with anyone with a XMPP account.
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Google Talk also lets me make free international long distance phone calls, while still only has the same limitations that BBM does: it's effectively insecure and only works with other people who subscribe to it.
Google Talk is a federated XMPP server. I chat with dozens of friends who use it, without having my own google account; I just use my own XMPP server.
XMPP has end-to-end encryption, both for chat and video (pidgin-gpg, jitsi, etc).
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SMS is encrypted over the air on any modern GSM network...
Do you trust RIM more than your carrier? Both are still subject to government demands for lawful interception.
If you're really concerned about encryption, you should encrypt the data end to end where only you and who you're communicating with have the keys, not any third parties in between. BBM doesn't provide this.
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But, multi platform, Real Soon Now(tm).
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BBM was too important to fade away with the handset business.
You say that like BB is still relevant. The sales figures are questionable [theregister.co.uk] and hinge largely on Blackberry's word which, by means of a flailing company, is basically hearsay. It would be interesting to submit a slashdot poll about BB's Z10 and who actually bought one..
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can use this supremely user-friendly chat system that assigns me a random 8-digit hex string as an ID on my iPhone!
Re:Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
its retro dude, like the old ICQ user numbers.
Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, except more, since ICQ numbers at least had the decency to stick to decimal.
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And low ICQ numbers had some of a status symbol.
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Nice to know you've looked sometime in the last two years ;)
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At least they're shorter that ICQ! ;)
Whatsapp and Apple's Messages will be hit hard (Score:2)
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People like whatspp because your ID is your phone number. You don't have to know a handle or email.
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So what? You have to know a phone number, which is even harder to memorize.
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A phone number is not a good identifier. A lot of people share a phone number (or have more than one), or is a land line and can't receive messages. It is also non portable from one country to another. What happens if you change your SIM card?
Anyways often the phone number IS the new bit of information, when you already have the email address.
Re: Whatsapp and Apple's Messages will be hit hard (Score:2)
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Who memorizes phone numbers these days?
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The only thing that makes email difficult to memorise is all the free email services, where anything remotely memorable has already been taken... You end up being dugancent432423432432@gmail.com
Numbers are not terribly memorable, people memorise them out of necessity. I memorise several email addresses without problems, most people are name@company.tld which isn't exactly difficult to memorise.
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People like whatspp because your ID is your phone number. You don't have to know a handle or email.
Is this a good thing because people tend to remember their phone numbers more than their emails, or because most people don't have emails?
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It's a text messaging replacement.
It is most popular overseas, where flat rate text message plans, especially across international borders, are less universal than in the US.
In fact I have WhatsApp installed solely to text with international friends who don't have iPhones. It works damn well.
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Only it's not a replacement, because it only works with those who have the same application installed...
Text messaging can reach anyone with a compatible handset, which is virtually all of them these days.
Email is much the same, virtually any networked client device has email capability.
And both of these offer you a huge choice of providers and clients, something you just don't get with proprietary services like whatsapp.
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I never understood the appeal of Whatsapp.
It's just instant messaging, and restricted to mobile devices.
On top of that, Whatsapp is actually slightly modified XMPP. Just the same as GTalk or WLM!
Wait...what? (Score:2)
The service recently gained the ability to make phone calls, conduct video chats and even share screen tops with other BBM users
So this new service will allow me to make phone calls. With my phone.
So what does this do that I can't already do with Android or iPhone? I mean other than share screen tops. I don't I can do that with my current phone, as I have no idea what that is.
But send messages, send pictures, make phone calls. Things I already do, and I've never owned a Blackberry or used BBM.
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You can message your friends who have Blackberries.
Just as WhatsApp enabled (free, non-SMS) cross communication between iOS and Android, now RIM has realised that they need to get in on that if they have any hope of keeping their existing users, let alone tempt any new users to BB devices.
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And by free, you mean "with huge [cnet.com] privacy [www.cbc.ca] implications [wired.co.uk]", right?
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You can message your friends who have Blackberries.
Please be patient with me. I'm old (over 40) and there are kids on my lawn.
Could I not send text (SMS) messages to Blackberry users previously? I read the wikipedia entry on BBM, and I'm honestly stuggling with what this gives me (from the viewpoint of an Android, iOS, OR Blackberry user).
Text messages (to a person or group); send pictures; make phone calls. Voicenotes? Is that different than voice mail?
Send music files. That's the only thing on the feature list that jumps out at me as something I can't
it lets you use your data plan (Score:3)
It'll send text messages, voice, video chat, etc. over your data plan to any other BBM user. That way it burns through your data allotment rather than your voice/text allotment.
It'll be particularly handy if you have, say, a 3G tablet that doesn't do voice, or if you have access to a cheap data plan but your voice calls and texts are relatively expensive.
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If you're charged for SMS messages rather than having a monthly allotment, services like iOS Messages/WhatsApp/BBM really help since they use your data allowance rather than being specific things the telco can bill you for.
For me, iOS Messages allows me to send text messages, pictures, videos etc to my friends in the USA (I;m in the UK) for free - all it is is data, which I have a ton of (infinite if I'm on wifi), whereas my carrier charges 10-25p for international SMS and picture messages.
RIM's BBM service
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Close your eyes and imagine its around 13 years ago. There are no smart phones and no SMS services. You have a magic device called a Blackberry that sends and recieves email.
You keep using this device for a while and it develops the ability to send short messages to other Blackberry users. You keep using this service, even as others get SMS and smartphones and the capability of BBM is essentially duplicated.
The only "advantage" this provides is a touchstone to long-time Blackberry users who don't unde
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Doesn't email qualify as (free, non-SMS) cross communication between iOS and Android (and virtually any other device)?
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Yes, but it's never really taken off as a substitute for SMS like these apps have. They're structured much more like instant messaging clients rather than email programs, even if the result is ultimately the same, it's all about the interface.
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Well, I imagine it allows you to do it with anyone using BBM, which would now include all Blackberry, iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch, and Android. That's at least more than iMessages on iOS does. I'm not tied into the Android ecosystem enough to know if there is an equivalent there, and if it is cross-platform or not.
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You mean just like the rest of us have been doing with VoIP for years?
Not in North America? (Score:1)
According to the article this phone will not be available in North America. That's a shame, the Q5 looks to match my preferences. It's got a physical keyboard, it has the new BB10 operating system and it's less expensive than the Q10. Sounds perfect for me.... shame it won't be offered where I live.
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"Emerging markets" is a codeword for "poor countries that can't afford our current devices."
If you live in the US they want you to buy the Q10, as it is more profitable for them. In other countries where very few to no one can afford the Q10, at least they'll make some money with the Q5.
Of course the client will be free (Score:2)
They'll make their money off the back end servers.
Why (Score:2)
I can't wait (Score:2)
4 Years Too Late (Score:1)
It's cool to hate BlackBerry (Score:1)
Must have features! (Score:2)
Maybe the next version of BBM will let us share screen lefts, rights, fronts, and/or backs!
They're really creating a whole new market here. Most understated tech development of 2013, mark my words!
Wait, what?
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Tech companies are terrible at naming things, see FaceBook's "Chat Heads". I'm sure a "screen top" is an equivalent to sharing your desktop, except that you don't have a desktop on a tablet / phone, so they had to come up with something relevant, yet familiar.
They failed.
WhatsApp (Score:2)
I think RIM is seeing the success of WhatsApp and wants a piece of that pie.
They already have the infrastructure in place and only need to code client software. In the future they could charge users on non-Blackberry platforms a small subscription fee.
WhatsApp charges $1 a year. It's negligible, but when multiplied by hundreds of millions of users? Not so negligible anymore!
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In the future they could charge users on non-Blackberry platforms a small subscription fee.
And they could watch their user base disappear. The only appeal that this has for me is cross-platform support for read receipts of MMS. I already get that with 85% of the messaging I do through iMessage, this would add the people I know that have Android.
I don't care enough to pay for that though.
Too many.. (Score:3)
There are far too many proprietary im services out there...
Email was great, there are many different email services, and they all interoperate...
The telephone is great too, there are many different telcos and they all interoperate.
But since then...
First we had IRC, all these disparate unconnected networks but at least you could still use a client of your choice.
Then we got instant messaging... ICQ, AIM, Yahoo etc, all unconnected and each with its own client. Multi protocol IM clients made this slightly less intolerable but still, you need a bunch of accounts to talk to different people and you end up having to sign up new accounts because one friend of yours happens to use a service you haven't used before.
And today it just gets worse and worse, services are increasingly proprietary and there are more and more of them every week. It's absolute madness!
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Thank you. I thought I was alone in thinking that the world had gone absolutely crazy with the amount of messaging services out there.
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Yeah, tell that to AOL, Delphi, CompuServe, etc. Don't you remember when they had Internet *gateways* to interchange their proprietary with the Internet (mail standard)? It wasn't there instantly, and certainly wasn't pretty.
There initially were different phone companies, with multiple lines running down the streets.
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Ever heard of XMPP? It's an IEEE standard, and Google Talk is just another federated XMPP server. ;)
It descentalized just like email.
Set up your own xmpp server, tell your friends to use it, add you gtalk friends so you don't loose contact, and contribute to making propietary IM dissapear now!
Interesting (Score:2)
As Rene Ritchie points out, [imore.com] "every single one of Apple's major mobile competitors now makes apps for iOS."
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I'm not really sure that's interesting or new. All it confirms is what we already knew- that all other companies believe in cross platform interop to some degree is better whereas Apple still believes only in platform lock-in.
Google, Microsoft, Blackberry et. al. have simply decided there's more value in letting people use their products and services whatever platform they choose, whilst Apple has simply decided to keep all it's products and services Apple only in the hope that that will keep customers loya
Two things (Score:2)
2) If only Apple would open up iMessage, then this would be a real story. I can only dream of the day when I can iMessage from a PC using Pidgin.
BBM and iOS/Android Secure Work Spaces (Score:2)
I bet that once the MDM code for the BES10 Secure Work Spaces got done to talk to the SRP infrastructure, 90pc of the work to make BBM work on those platforms was done too.
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Can you say too little too late?
No. But I can BBM it.
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black-i-droid
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