Other than knowing BBM for Windows Phone was official and would be arriving sometime this summer, we didn’t really know much about the release – until now. Jeff Gadway, Head of Product and Marketing at BlackBerry, gives us an insight on BBM for Windows Phone, including how it will look, which features WP users will enjoy on the initial release and when eager users can test run the Beta.
First of all, the initial release will not include features such as BBM Voice, BBM Channels, BBM Stickers (Shop) and location sharing powered by Glympse.
We all know BBM was released in Beta this week, but it was a well closed and internal release – unless you had your BBID whitelisted, the app would not download. All that is about to change though, users willing to report bugs and understand that Beta is Beta and the experience won’t be 100%, you will soon be able to test run BBM for WP.
Now for the juicy bit of news – BBM for Windows Phone has received special attention from the BBM team in terms of aesthetics and feel. The Windows Phone release will feature the native Windows Phone 8 UI, giving users a much more native experience, instead of using the BB10 UI which was slapped on for the Android and iOS counterparts.
This comes as a pleasant surprise and we hope BlackBerry is working on a major redesign update for iOS and Android. It’s unfortunate that the initial release won’t feature any of the cool new additions in which iOS and Android users have been given, but that’s all to come in the near future. Rest assured, the much superior messaging capabilities are still present and soon to come out of Beta in the coming weeks.
Sign up to beta test BBM on Windows Phone
Source: INSIDE BlackBerry