I don’t usually do April fool’s practical jokes. Historically my practical jokes aren’t really funny. However this afternoon, I posted this on Facebook:
The response from my friends is usually “really, how?”. I have to say that the response that I got today is a little more than the response that I get from my usual status update. Of course for those who are still wondering how, this is just an april fool’s practical joke.
Aside from that, I notice a trend in the response that I get. They’re usually from my Indonesian friends. I have a lot of non-Indonesian Facebook friends who commented on what I post from time to time, but nothing this time. An even more interesting fact is that of all my Indonesian friends who responded, not all of them uses blackberry messenger. My friends who use Android and Nokia phones are even curious about how I can get BBM to work on my iPhone.
This alone, proves one thing for me. Say what you want about BBM, but it is a very important app to some people. They love BBM because their phones came with it, and everyone who buys a Blackberry phone has that app. But this could mean another thing. It may mean that for a lot of people, installing an IM program (Skype, eBuddy, Meebo, WhatsApp etc) in their mobile phone is such a painful chore (well it is, for some phones). An app like BBM is not an overly complicated app to develop; I’ve been using WhatsApp for a while now and it’s a very good app. It has almost all of the features that BBM has. A question that we must ponder is: why the heck aren’t Google, Apple, and Nokia bundle a similar app to their OS?
So had RIM opened a public API for BBM that everyone can use (for non-nerds, it means that if BBM is available for iPhone, Android, and Nokia phones) (looking at the hints, this may well be happening), would people still be using BBM? I actually doubt it. I haven’t personally used a Blackberry phone myself, so I may not be the best judge in this matter. But my guts says that it will come to iOS and Android sooner than later.
Bonus: If you’re one of the many Blackberry fans who’s waiting for the PlayBook tablet to come, it does not come with BBM. It can only do BBM if you have a Blackberry phone and tether it to your PlayBook.
