The saga continues with yet another set of pictures showing BBM running on Android. The last set were quite grainy and looked suspicious since they used a screenshot that RIM had posted previously. Now we have yet another set coming from TechnoBuffalo coming from a tipster who claims to work at RIM. Here is what he had to say as commentary about the current and previous images:
I work for RIM and I was shown the latest version of bbm for android. I ran the app on the blackberry android dev phone.( The dev phone feels very cheap and unstable and the front four buttons have just been stuck on. I don’t believe this phone will ever be released to the public.) The latest version certainly looks better than the previous version.
The tipster also said that the previous screenshots that were suspicous due to using a default screen were because “the Nicole account in the previous photos is the default account for BBM Testing.” The tipster also said that an iOS variant is under consideration and this BBM for Android might be coming as early as DevCon this month.
This is definitely still in totally unconfirmed rumor land for now but hey it is fun to speculate. I am undecided on if BBM on Android would help or hurt RIM’s brand but they definitely would immediately become the largest cross platform mobile IM service. That could give them some serious pull on other platforms. On the other hand it might be a segway for users to leave their BlackBerrys.
On the other hand RIM’s former Director of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup, clearly told us along with quite a few others that BBM for other platforms was not on the roadmap at BlackBerry World. Maybe things have changed since May?
PS: Anybody else finding the stuck on buttons on the Android device a bit odd? Something just seems fishy here. Why wouldn’t RIM be testing on an actually available Android device. If you know your Android phones let us know what you think the device looks like in the comments!
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