BlackBerry still needs to offer an official release date, however Samsung has recently begun talking about BBM for Android. They have yet to drop anything in terms of a release date, but they have mentioned terms such as “upcoming” and “soon.” The important part to remember is the definition of “soon” usually varies depending on who is doing the talking.
In this case Samsung is pointing towards the upcoming availability of the BBM for Android app in the Samsung Apps store. This next bit shouldn’t be much of a surprise in terms of app availability, however Samsung also mentioned how BBM for Android was coming to the Play Store.
“Samsung has announced that the upcoming BBM app will be available in the Google Play and the Samsung App store soon and available to all Samsung GALAXY smartphone consumers across Africa.”
The interesting part here comes in with those last few words; across Africa. This particular press release was pointed towards that market and was pushing benefits of BBM as giving Samsung customers access the the BBM social network. Further details here pointed towards this being available as “part of Samsung Messaging Hub as a complementary addition to the current slate of propriety and third party messaging services.”
Of course, the features of BBM will remain the same as what we have been seeing with the leaks. Basically, that includes person-to-person chats, multi-person chats and BBM Groups. There was also mention of the ability to share images and voice notes.
Otherwise, while we don’t expect BBM for Android to arrive as a paid service, there was mention about how the app would be available “at no cost” at launch. That all being said, now we need to see which other markets Samsung will be pushing the availability of BBM.