After promising Blackberry Messaging(BBM) would be released on Android and iOS by the end of Summer, it appears that they have missed that deadline – September 21 being the end of summer in the northern hemisphere – making a shaky start to their transition to become an end-to-end solutions provider of hardware, software and services, after advising yesterday that they would retreat from the consumer market on the back of disastrous sales of their newly launched Blackberry 10 line of handsets.
In a blog post, Blackberry have advised that they have halted the rollout for both iOS and Android advising that a leaked version of BBM for Android caused undefined “issues”. The rollout which reached iOS users in the United Arab Emirates, India, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand before it was halted was supposed to rollout to Android users first but that promise seems to have gone unfulfilled.
The full text of the blog :
Prior to launching BBM for Android, an unreleased version of the BBM for Android app was posted online. The interest and enthusiasm we have seen already – more than 1.1 million active users in the first 8 hours without even launching the official Android app – is incredible. Consequently, this unreleased version caused issues, which we have attempted to address throughout the day.
Our teams continue to work around the clock to bring BBM to Android and iPhone, but only when it’s ready and we know it will live up to your expectations of BBM. We are pausing the global roll-out of BBM for Android and iPhone. Customers who have already downloaded BBM for iPhone will be able to continue to use BBM. The unreleased Android app will be disabled, and customers who downloaded it should visit www.BBM.com to register for updates on official BBM for Android availability.
As soon as we are able, we will begin a staggered country roll-out of BBM for Android and continue the roll-out of BBM for iPhone. Please follow @BBM on Twitter for the latest updates and go to www.BBM.com to sign-up for updates about BBM for Android and iPhone. These issues have not impacted BBM service for BlackBerry.
At this stage, Blackberry has no further comments on the rollout, nor a projected time or date for the resumption of the rollout, instead pointing ‘fans’ of BBM to the blog post. If you have installed the leaked BBM APK then you’d be best off uninstalling it as Blackberry has advised that it will be disabled.
If you’re desperate for news of when the rollout will continue, you can follow BBM on Twitter or if you want to hand over your details to a company hell bent on getting themselves setup as a services company you can leave sign up to their mailing list which asks you to agree that you ‘would like to receive information about your products and services’.
Can Blackberry do anything right!?