Apple has iMessage, Samsung has ChatOn and there are a boatload of other 3rd party Instant Messaging apps out there, namely Kik, Whatsapp, Beluga, Beejive and Fuse. One of the more popular Instant Messaging services is RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, which is used by over 55 million on a daily basis.
A few months ago a report in the Wall Street Journal noted that Google didn’t want to be the only without a native messaging app and was rumoured to be deep in development, “Google Inc., whose Android software is the most popular operating system on smartphones, has also recently worked on a messaging application, a person familiar with the matter said”. Since the report no other news has surfaced. However, Techradar has posted a few screenshots of what looks to be RIM’s BBM ported to an Android device. As you can see by the images there’s the famous BBM icon, the users display name, PIN, message and status. Apparently the images came from a RIM employee who says the BBM for Android app is currently in beta testing, estimated to be launching by 2012.
Techradar did state that “As far as the screengrabs go, there’s no real way for us to verify them until BBM for Android launches so it’s possible that someone is giving our leg a good yank – but with the app almost certainly in development, we’re cautiously optimistic about the whole thing being legit.”
What do you think? Real or Fake? Good move for RIM to have BBM on other platforms?
Update: Looks like this is fake, the same image was featured on the BlackBerry site, specifically for BBM SDK Demo. Sucks.
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