BlackBerry for several years has been keeping its BlackBerry Messenger platform to its BlackBerry devices with many fans of the service hoping one day, the company would expand it to support additional platforms, such as iOS and Android. The day has finally come as BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has announced BlackBerry Messenger will finally be going multi-platform later this year.
During the BlackBerry Live keynote, Heins disclosed the BlackBerry Messenger application will be made available later this summer on both iPhones running iOS 6 and Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. At its launch, BlackBerry Messenger for iOS and Android will only support Messaging and Groups features, although BlackBerry plans to improve the messing software by including a number of notable features such as BBM Voice, BBM Screen Share, BBM Video and Channels in future updates.
Heins says the BlackBerry Messenger for iOS and Android will be “as fully featured” as BlackBerry can make it, but notes BlackBerry 10 would be the premier platform for the messaging service considering they company has fully control over the software and hardware. As to why BlackBerry decided to making BlackBerry Messenger available to competing platforms, Heins says it’s a “statement of confidence” of its BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Messenger software.
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