BlackBerry announced back in May that its popular BlackBerry Messenger service would launch on Android and iOS sometime this summer, but since then the company has been silent about the apps and the timing of their release. Today we got one tiny step closer to seeing BBM make its way onto non-BlackBerry platforms, though, as BlackBerry has posted user guides for both the Android and iOS versions of BBM.
Included in the guides are general explanations of just what BBM is, how it works and what its features are. The documents confirm that BBM will work over mobile networks and Wi-Fi and that users can send photos and images, use BBM Groups to conduct chats with up to 30 other people, use emoticons and contacts using phone numbers, emails, BBM PINs and NFC. The guides also include explanations of all the BBM icons that users can expect to see.
BlackBerry hasn't yet shown what BBM for Android or iOS will look like, but some recently-leaked screenshots suggest that we should expect apps that are BlackBerry 10-eqsue in their design. While it's still unclear when we'll get to try these apps out for ourselves, the appearance of these user guides suggests that we could be getting close. Plus, BlackBerry has previously said that the apps would arrive in the summer, and as of this writing there's only around a month of summer remaining. Here's to hoping that BlackBerry can stick to its estimate.
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