No BBM for Android and iOS This Week
BlackBerry’s much hyped BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) roll out for Android & iOS ended in an anti-climax recently, with the smartphone maker delaying the launch of the Android version. The iOS version suffered too, having being taken off the iOS App Store. Now, the company says BBM won’t be out for the platforms until next week.
No BBM For You This Week, Android and iOS
BlackBerry had paused the launch of both versions of the app after the Android version leaked online. The app ended up being downloaded over a million times in less than 8 hours. While users who downloaded BBM for iOS will be able to use it, others are going to have to wait a while before the app is re-released to the App Store.
“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 leaked Android version, on the other hand, will be disabled and rendered useless soon. BlackBerry has said it is working round the clock to fix issues caused by the app, and will soon engage in a “staggered country roll-out”. There’s no word on when the app will return to iOS, or make it to the Play Store in the first place. BlackBerry is asking users to wait until they sort this out.
Andrew Bocking, head of BBM has explained in a blog post that the leaked app caused an on overload on BlackBerry’s servers owing to heavy traffic.
Last week, an unreleased, older version of the BBM for Android app was posted on numerous file sharing sites. This older version resulted in volumes of data traffic orders of magnitude higher than normal for each active user and impacted the system in abnormal ways. The version we were planning to release on Saturday addressed these issues, however we could not block users of the unreleased version if we went ahead with the launch.
We attempted to address the problems caused by the unreleased version throughout the day on Saturday, but as active users of the unreleased app neared a million – and accelerated – it became clear that the only way to address the issue was to pause the roll out for both Android and iPhone.
Bocking went on to add that the BBM was working non-stop to fixing the issues at hand. However, he ruled out the app making it to both platforms any time this week. So all of you BlackBerry enthusiasts are going to have to wait until next week at the very least before you have BBM up and running.
The team is now focused on adjusting the system to completely block this unreleased version of the Android app when we go live with the official BBM for Android app. We are also making sure that the system is reinforced to handle this kind of scenario in the future. While this may sound like a simple task – it’s not. This will take some time and I do not anticipate launching this week.
BlackBerry originally announced BlackBerry Messenger would hit Android & iOS at its annual BlacBerry Live conference in May this year. Last week, it confirmed that the Android version would roll out on September 21, while the iOS version would hit the App Store a day later on September 22.
The BlackBerry Messenger has been continually leaked ever since its announced. An apk leaked on Xda developers which would install perfectly but not run. Additionally, many sources have come up with photos and videos of BlackBerry Messenger running on various devices.
BlackBerry Messenger currently serves more than 60 million monthly active users, who use the service for an average of 90 minutes every single day. The service processes a total of more than 10 billion messages every day.