Despite its best efforts, BlackBerry says Facebook and WhatsApp will not reverse their decision to discontinue native app support for BlackBerry 10.
“We are extremely disappointed in [Facebook’s] decision as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands,” says the Waterloo-based company in a newly published blog post on Inside BlackBerry. “Despite this, we have worked hard to ensure our end users have the best experience in light of this decision, and are continuing to search for alternate solutions.”
BlackBerry goes on to add, “Our commitment to BlackBerry 10 and to developers has not changed – we know our developer community continues to be one of the strongest proponents of BlackBerry 10 and they are creating thousands of apps every month.”
To offset the loss of two core apps, the company is launching a new initiative called Great Apps on BlackBerry. Every two weeks, BlackBerry World will feature a new selection of 20 compelling natives apps. Moreover, the company says it’s making strategic investments to ensure other popular apps like Twitter don’t also abandon the OS.
Lastly, BlackBerry is asking passionate users to tweet their discontent at Facebook and WhatsApp using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps.
[source]Inside BlackBerry[/source]
