The much-awaited BlackBerry Messenger for Android app is scheduled to be made available at 7AM EDT (7PM +8 GMT) today, to be followed by BBM for iPhone running iOS 6 and iOS 7 at 2:30 PM EDT (2.30AM +8 GMT) on September 22. We checked the Google Play Store earlier and found no sign of the ‘real’ BBM app but instead greeted with an insane amount of fake ones.
BBM has been a mainstay for BlackBerry and considered the killer app for the BlackBerry platform. BBM is one of the largest mobile-centric communities in the industry with over 60 million active users worldwide, sending 150 billion messages each month.
While making it available to iOS and Android may look like BlackBerry releasing its ‘crown jewels’ but BlackBerry officials have revealed that some features will be exclusive to the BlackBerry platform. For instance, BBM connectivity with apps. With the BlackBerry platform, over 5,000 apps are BBM-connected. This will not be available on other platforms.
With BBM, users can call, text, video chat and share screens with other BlackBerry users via 3G and free over Wi-Fi.
