I must be in the minority here but I'm actually looking forward to this. I know a lot of people with Blackberries so it will be nice to have everyone connected together. Whatsapp works well, but it's quite an ugly interface I think, so it will be good to see what RIM brings to the table.
I don't know about you being in the minority, when the time comes, BBM will have a lot of downloads in the AppStore.
Me and close to 20 friends all had BlackBerry's and had a group, BBM was the best messaging and group chats, we all have iPhone's now, we use the "best" messaging app for iPhone, Whatsapp, and it has nothing to do with BBM.
So when the time comes, all of us will download BBM and if it performs the same as it does with a BlackBerry device, it will be our number 1 messaging app.
Even if we all have iPhones this could be the best messaging app for the iOS.
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For reasons I explain here, I think this could very well be a smart move. A gamble for sure though.
I'm looking forward to this anyway. BBM is miles better than WhatsApp and the only reason anyone uses WhatsApp is because it's a cross-platform alternative to BBM. Well now BBM is cross-platform.
It think this is good for BlackBerry, although making it free I don't think it's the way to go, people might be concerned about ads or something hidden.
They should make the first month free, then charge 1, 2 or 3 dlls.
Even if we all have iPhones this could be the best messaging app for the iOS.
And yes, like someone said here, this is a move so that people who have and love BlackBerry's don't switch to another brand do to lack of cross-platform connectivity via BBM.