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BBM won’t be launching on iOS or Android for at least another week

Jordan O'Brien
September 24, 2013

BBM did get out of the starting blocks last weekend, but it didn’t get very far, with Blackberry having to pull the app after several hours due to an overwhelming number of people trying to access the service. It looks like those users won’t have to wait for long though, with Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President of BBM, taking to the company’s blog to explain the delay.

According to Bocking, the BBM for Android app that was leaked on filesharing sites was an earlier version than the one the company had planned to launch — and resulted in volumes of data traffics higher than that of a normal active user, an issue that had been fixed in the release version.

Blackberry had to pull the app in order to block users of the unreleased version, a problem it wasn’t able to address on Saturday due to the million downloads of the unreleased version.

Due to this mammoth task, Bocking doesn’t see BBM for Android or iOS to launch this week, meaning we might have to wait a little longer to get access to BBM on iPhones and Android devices.

The clock is ticking for BBM to launch on other platforms, with services such as Line, Kik and WhatsApp not slowing down their pace and already on more platforms than BBM intends to be.

About the Author

Jordan O'Brien

Technology Journalist with an unhealthy obsession with trains and American TV. Attempts satire far too often. (+44) 020 7324 3502

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