Some of us expected to get the BBM from the Google Play Store and/or Apple’s App Store for the weekend. Alas, we’ll have to wait a little longer for that privilege.
You see BBM did hit the App Store but its Android counterpart was leaked before “officially” hitting the Play Store. The Canadian company didn’t like that and has decided to take somewhat drastic measures. Perhaps the BBM for Android wasn’t ready for prime time yet, perhaps not.
In any case, the decision was made to postpone the launch and stop further distribution of the iOS version. As far as I can guess, the company wants to fine-tune few things here and there before opening the flood gates. Then, once they’re ready, both iOS and Android versions will be launched.
Meanwhile those who downloaded the application on their iPhone or iPad are free to use it, while those running it on Android devices will be blocked… until the app is re-launched. And we tend to think that will happen sooner rather than later. Still, the company talks about a “staggered country roll-out” for BBM for Android and a restart of the iOS rollout so that could take some time.
We’ll be following this story closely and get back to you as soon as we have something worth talking about to add. In the meantime, we’re curious to know – do you want/need BBM running on your non-BlackBerry device?