New Delhi: While BlackBerry was expected to go smoothly with the launch of its much-awaited BBM app for Android and iOS, the company has goofed up the entire rollout process. Having made the Android users wait for a long time, BlackBerry - citing technical issues - has now halted the planned rollout of its BBM app for iPhone and Android.
While the BBM for iPhone rollout began on schedule on Saturday from New Zealand and then became available to Indian users, the Android app's availability kept on getting delayed. BBM for Android was scheduled to arrive on the Google Play Store at 4:30 PM IST (7 AM EDT) on Saturday, but it has not hit the Play Store yet.
It sounds so unprofessional that a company of such a repute not only failed to meet its planned schedule but also stopped the process midway. While the BBM app was slated to appear first on Android then on iOS, the availability of the app on iOS before Android reflected the unprofessional approach of BlackBerry.
Also the official BBM Twitter account (@BBM), whose followers swelled in number over a few hours, wasn't of much help for people waiting eagerly. It had a few jokes to share and an apology much later but didn't clear the air about what was actually causing the delay in the Android app rollout.
Finally, after more than 12 hours of BBM for Android's scheduled availability time, Inside BlackBerry, the official BlackBerry blog, had a three-paragraph post that put the blame for the delay on "an unreleased version of the BBM for Android app" that was posted online. According to BlackBerry, "more than 1.1 million active users in the first 8 hours without even launching the official Android app."
But the user eagerness in getting BBM on their non-BlackBerry phones led apparently led to some issues. "Consequently, this unreleased version caused issues, which we have attempted to address throughout the day," the post by BlackBerry's Business Social Media Manager Luke Reimer said. As a result the unreleased Android app will be disabled and BlackBerry has stopped, for now, the global roll-out of BBM for Android and iPhone.
Those who have downloaded the BBM for iPhone from the Apple App Store, will be able to continue to use BBM.
BBM has more than 60 million monthly active customers on BlackBerry alone and this figure is expected to multiply with the popular messaging app becoming available on the two most popular mobile platforms.
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