Earlier this week, BBM finally made its way over to iPhone and Android. While we already have a review of the former, I’m going to take a quick look at the Android version today, and see how well BlackBerry has executed this hugely popular app.
Note: For reference, this review was conducted on a Nexus 4 running Android 4.3, with BBM version 1.0.0.72 (the latest version as of writing).
On first glance, the app looks very similar to its iOS counterpart, with both emulating the look of the BlackBerry 10 app. The only glaring omission is the lack of contact categories, which was added to the iOS version in the first update. A few minor visual differences are also present, such as the positioning of back buttons, likely thanks to OS limitations.
Another notable difference between the Android and iOS versions is the BBM widget for Android. iOS has no support for widgets, so of course they couldn’t bring this feature over, but those of you on Android ought to appreciate it – the widget gives you a quick glance at your chats right from the homescreen.
iOS comparisons aside, BBM for Android is very well-integrated into the OS. You can share photos with contacts straight from the native share menu, and events from BBM Groups will integrate right into your calendar. If your device has a notification LED, BBM can make use of that to notify you of messages – just make sure you don’t have another app like Light Flow controlling the LED, as it could conflict with BBM. NFC-enabled devices can add contacts by tapping devices too. Moreover, when you’re taking a photo to share, it’ll invoke the native camera app to take that photo – or it can invoke the appropriate app to choose pre-existing photos. It can even update your status with whatever music you’re currently playing in the native music app.
Compared to the BlackBerry 10 version, however, there are some things missing. This could be partly because the APIs aren’t there, and partly because there are still features to come. First off, you can share a few more things with contacts on BlackBerry 10 – BBM for Android is limited to sharing photos or voice notes, while BB10 will also share contact cards, calendar events, your location, and files. Voice and Video (Channels too, though it’s still in beta on BB10) are also pretty major features that aren’t there, but BlackBerry has said numerous times that they plan to bring these over to iOS and Android soon – let’s just hope “soon” means before the end of the year.
Another feature that really ought to be there, for the app’s own sake, is the ability to invite people on your social networks to use it. Currently, the only way to invite others is via email or SMS, but there should be some way to post invites to social networks – that’s where most of us communicate nowadays, after all.
Features aside, there are a couple of kinks in the app to be ironed out. For instance, upon switching my BBID from my Z10 to my Nexus 4, most of my contact photos wouldn’t load until I added a new contact. The “Show My Country and Time” option seems to disable itself at random too. Luckily, BlackBerry appears to be on the ball with bug fixes, so with a bit of luck these won’t be around for long.
As far as that core BBM experience, however, it’s all there and as good as ever – you have your delivered and read notifications, no character limits, photo compression to keep data usage down, and yes, you can ping your contacts – but don’t blame me if they start blocking you. BBM Groups, arguably one of BBM’s best features, is there in full force as well. And despite the slew of new users hitting the servers, message delivery has been rock-solid. BlackBerry’s got a lot of catching up to do with the mogul of cross-platform messaging, WhatsApp, but if BlackBerry can execute well, then BBM is the app for the job.