So what is so exciting about BBM in the saturated IM market that should make me install it on my phone.
There might be something within BBM to give it a try. Try it if you think any of these are important to you. Ignore it if any of it is not important to you.
- Security: So you must have heard from a lot of people saying BBM is a secure service and might wonder why is it more secure than other services what does it have to do with my normal daily conversations. All of BlackBerry's servers are routed only through the BlackBerry servers unlike other services such as Whatsapp which use Google Cloud services or Apple's servers for routing the messages before they reach their servers. This makes BBM much lesser susceptible to phishing since there are much lesser points of attack. It is for this reason and Googles mandates for always on services, that you see the BBM icon in your notifications all the time. Secondly, BlackBerry uses highly secure encryption algorithms to which even they do not have the decryption keys (except for countries such as India whose Government forced BlackBerry to alter their algos for security purposes) that makes it nearly impossible to spy on your conversations. Further, BBM does not store your messages on the server once they are delivered to your device. You have heard of a recent news of some Pro-Palestenian hackers attacking WhatsApp but would have never heard such a thing for BBM. The iMessage may also be a secure service (I would not compare the securities of it against BBM) but cannot be in the same category since it does not allow you to communicate with your friends on other platforms.
You can be at ease while sharing any information within your family such as passwords, Credit card numbers, etc over BBM. Over WhatsApp, I would be a little concerned.
- Privacy: I am sure a lot of you out there love updating your display pics and statuses over the IMs such as WhatsApp or BBM, but would not want a lot of people to see these updates. FOr example, you have lied to your boss for a leave and want to update your status telling your friends you are having a great time on the holiday. You could land up in an awkward position due to updates just because your boss had your phone number and you could not hide your status update from him. With BBM, only those people whom you approve to be friends on through Pin sharing can view your updates. Using BBM would also put an end to the messages coming from random people who have your number.
- Engaging: BBM has always been praised for its messaging speed and its reliability along with the iconic D and the R. This as against only a delivery note on WhatsApp is much more engaging. iMessage has implemented this as well but then is again a single platform service. Another aspect is your online status shown by WhatsApp or Hangouts. The apps give away your status of being online only if you use the app (you dont even have to read the message) that would imply that you are trying to ignore the senders chat (not so pleasing for the sender). On the other hand, with the D and the R, you can chose to ignore the message and the sender would only think that you are too busy to read his chat since he hasn't received the R yet.
- Status Updates: BBM has an exclusive tab for updates of your friends that gives you a much better experience to find out what is on your friends minds than going into the profile of each and every friend to find out their status and picture updates.
- High resolution Pictures: By default BBM will send a low res picture when shared to save data which is a pretty smart implementation IMO. After receiving the picture, the receiver can chose to request for a High Res which only on approval by the sender will be sent. WhatsApp on the other hand always compressed pictures when being shared.
- The Ping: Ping is an effective way to catch the attention of the receiver.
- BBM Voice and Video and possibly Screen Share: This is going to be implemented in future updates and will surely be an amazing feature where you could speak to your friends over BBM. For sure Skype and other apps do this cross platform but they do not provide a great mobile experience as of now. They are already implemented on the BB10 devices and do work amazingly well. You could take a demo on any of your friend's BB10 devices. Whether screen share would come to your device or not is not known, but it would great if you wanted share contents with your friends without having to share attachments that are huge in size or too privy to be shared. This feature is already implemented in the BB10 devices but it is yet to be confirmed if it would be coming Cross Platform (although I dont see the harm). Let us hope it makes the leap.
- BBM Channels: BBM Channels is an exciting service that is currently in the Beta stage for the BB10 users and is an interesting concept of Social Networking. It allows you to create multiple channels to share content based on your interests. You can also follow many Channels without any of your friends actually finding out what you are following. (The creepy social network many of you might have always wanted!!) It is an interesting concept to follow and share your likes and going to come pretty soon the same BBM app as an update in the coming months. Stay tuned.
- Nostalgia: And the last one would be nostalgia. I am sure a lot of you have been BlackBerry users at some point of time in the past and it sure was exciting to get those pings in the past. Using BBM on your favourite devices of the present will surely light up the nostalgia.
I am sure there may be many more reasons that might compel you to use BBM and feel free to share the same. The app is not yet perfect and needs a bit of a tuning on the UI. (For example: the Action Bar on the Androids should be hidden when the keyboard is brought up reducing the screen space to only two to three lines of chat is really frustrating). The app is too BlackBerry 10 and it needs to balance a bit of the native experience of Android and iOS to reduce the huge difference when one opens the up. Subtlety would be more acceptable IMO than the huge differences present as of now. That will definitely come by sooner or later depending on the users' feedback. For one thing that I can be sure of is that BlackBerry is listening this time as they have brought about a lot of features in the BB10 updates purely based on the user's feedback.
Some may complain that it does not support multiple device sync for messages but you have got to realize that this is a trade off for security since the messages are deleted from the server immediately on receipt of the same by your device (and hence they cannot be delivered to any other device that might make BBM on multiple devices redundant). Storing it on servers may expose the data to vulnerabilities. I am sure a desktop client is on its way allowing you to connect your phone to your laptop to send and receive BBM on your desktop, thus maintaining the same delivery point.
BlackBerry has ensured that it's BBM arm is going independent and even if any buyer comes along and tries to sell off BlackBerry in parts, BBM will surely be retained as it is because it is its most important asset as of now. BBM is here to stay. Period.
For what BBM offers over the other platforms, it surely is an exciting app and if any of the above matter to you download it at
BBM. Now on Android and iPhone.
It might work for some and might not for others.