BlackBerry Senior Strategic Account Manager wrote on Twitter Friday that the company had submitted a request to review its popular messaging app for the iOS platform.
Blackberry is making good use of the hype being created around its BBM app. Earlier this month, a leaked video showed that BBM had already arrived on some of the beta testers' Android smartphones. And now in a more official yet causal way, BlackBerry senior strategic account manager Alex Kinsella, has announced the news of BBM for iPhones.
Kinsella, a longtime mobile manager at BlackBerry, tweeted the news Friday that the company had submitted the first iOS version of its messaging app to Apple, two weeks ago. But it is unclear what is taking so long for the Cuppertino-based tech giant to review the app. According to 9to5 Mac, Apple has been reviewing 99 percent of iOS app requests within 5 days of their submission, unless there is a reason to believe that the BBM app falls under that rare 1 percent category.
Just in case we forgot to mention, BBM for iPhone was submitted for review 2 wks ago. #waiting #BBM4ALL
- Alex Kinsella (@alexkinsella) September 6, 2013
There have been no leaked videos of BBM in action on an iPhone device so far. But considering most apps spread across various platforms work similarly, the iPhone version of BBM will closely resemble its Android counterpart. A detailed video was leaked by CrackBerry and appeared on YouTube, which showed BBM in full action on an Android smartphone.
Several reports in recent months have suggested that the Canadian company is planning to spin off its BBM service into a separate unit ahead of its plans to sell the company.
Being the company's most prominent asset, Blackberry hopes to compete against the leading messaging services like WhatsApp and iMessage. But with the dominance of these services in the market, it would be a tough challenge for BBM to prevail. Let us know in the comments if you think BBM will gain dominance or struggle to make its mark among the leading messaging services.
