Why to use BBM

In 2008, I got my first Blackberry mobile, I used BBM for 2 years and it was really helpful at that time, it saved my money and it was keeping me connected with my co-worker & some friends. At that time, BBM made a revolution, when people saw my Blackberry device, first question was "Oh this is the mobile that can talk for free?". In combination with the world’s fastest hardware keyboard, BBM offered a new degree of speed and utility. Never before we could chat on mobile as quickly as we could IM on desktops. There was one rule, "You want to use BBM, buy a BB device"

Five years later, I can’t name a single friend who owns a BlackBerry. Their phones have all been replaced by iPhones and Androids, and maybe a couple Windows Phones here and there. BBM has been replaced by iMessage, WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, Snapchat, and a long list of messengers... The shift from BlackBerry to newer, more modern platforms is nearly complete. BBM languished as the apps it helped inspire thrived and gained hundreds of millions of users. Yet, BlackBerry just this week launched BBM for iPhone and Android — perhaps its last chance at capitalizing on the brand equity the company once commanded.

Yesterday, I read a status on Facebook, "Facebook messenger, Whatsup, Viber, Line and much other are not enough? why to use BBM?"

Being a late entrant in the world of cross-platform IM services, BlackBerry played smartly bringing BBM to Android and iPhone for free. It might compensate for BlackBerry's late arrival and make it easier to battle other messaging tools on a more equal footing. And here's some reasons to use BBM:

1-  The PIN-based invitation model on BBM is something that makes it different it from other messaging app, that it will let the user to get an absolute authority on adding people to their BBM networks, unlike WhatsApp that lets anyone who has your phone number reach out to you, and unlike Facebook messenger where anyone can see you social life. No more sharing personal information such as phone number, social life, etc...

2-  Free app, no need to buy it and it doesn't contain any ads, moreover you don't need anymore to buy a Blackberry device to have use this app, it's just for everyone, for Android and IOS users.

3- What made BBM so special was its dead-simple and speedy interface. With a few flicks of the "pearl" or clicks of the keyboard, you could instant message with a friend, or with a whole group of people. Sending images was fast and easy in an age where everyone had no choice but to send slow, low-res "picture messages" via MMS. Simply, you won't miss any feature, BBM has it all, you can send text message, voice message, share photos and even more.

4- Simpler and faster especially for non technical people, I know that some companies record everyone's PIN, but it's just one time action, once u accept/invite a BBM PIN user to your network, it will work like charm, you can navigate to the contacts by clicking on the bottom navigation bar or by clicking on the menu slider on the left.

5- Typing wise, BBM is, at least, still fast, BlackBerry has wisely chosen to place the Send button in the bottom-right corner of the keyboard, so you can very quickly type a line, then fire it away. In most messaging apps, the Send button is located to the right of the text box — a small but important detail. One of the things that made BBM so fast was that the BlackBerry’s Return button, which was next to the space bar, also functioned as the Send button, and this remains the case. In the world of instant messaging, nobody has time for new paragraphs. There’s only time to type, and then send, and then type again.

6- Perhaps the only feature BBM can still hang its hat on is the encryption method. BlackBerry is serious about that, we all remember in 2010 when Saudi Arabic government asked the RIM to let her access to the user's data. Dailyfinance wrote about it: "Saudi Arabia Can Access BlackBerry User Data".


Finally, it's really that BBM proved to be impressively popular reaching 10 million downloads in the first 24 hours on Android play store, but after all the years of waiting, BBM is another messaging app with high level of security. All this, leads us to 2 questions, are our conversations so critical to need this high level of security ? Do we really need this security?