Thanks BlackBerry, but you can keep BBM to yourselves [Rant]
Being a weekend blogger on Phandroid can often feel lonely. The rest of the team is usually out having fun, catching movies, getting drunk or whatever. They are probably making fun of poor old me in their secret Hangouts group that I’m not allowed to be a part of while I toil away, looking for scraps of news here and there. But I do it because I like it, I do it because when I was one of you, I never wanted to wait until Monday. Also, I do it because I kind of need the money.
Every once in a while, though, my job is made easier by a rare weekend announcement or a release. It’s my opportunity to be the star, to be the one all of you rely upon. And today was supposed to be one of those days, with BlackBerry Messenger finally being available for download on Android after years of rumors. I’ve been sitting prepared for nearly seven hours to get the app and get an in-depth review ready, potentially driving thousands to download the app>
And what do you give me in return, BlackBerry? NOTHING! Zilch, nada, just a few tweets asking me and the other few thousand BBM fans celebrating the day they’ll never have to buy another BlackBerry device again to “be patient”. Patient for what, BlackBerry? For you to realize that one of the guys you fired wiped away your apks and all your source code?
Look, I really don’t want to make fun of the company. Despite all their problems, I don’t forget that they played an important role in building the smartphone category years ago, and no company ever manages to create such a loyal following without having gotten something right. Having said that, with nothing but bad news coming out of Waterloo recently, they really needed to get this release right.
Sadly, so far, it has been a complete sham.