Latest Update to BBM's Cross-Platform App now Supports iPad and iPod Touch

Towards the end of October 2013, BlackBerry resumed its rollout of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for Android and iPhone devices. It only took 24 hours for BlackBerry to report that the app had seen over 10 million downloads. You will notice that while the rollout includes Android devices, it only included the iPhone, not necessarily iOS.

That changed last week. On November 14, 2013 BlackBerry confirmed that it was ready with an update to the app. With this update, Wi-Fi only iPad and iPod Touch users will be able to download and use BBM for iPad and iPod Touch.

That sort of makes it another app rather than and upgrade, doesn’t it? Since it is assumed that BBM for iPad and iPod Touch will have almost the same features as BBM for iOS it does sound like two separate apps to me.

The new iOS edition of the app is available for download from the Apple App Store. The app will allow a user of these Wi-Fi only devices to share BBM PIN and PIN barcode through Facebook and Twitter. It is said that the upgrade also fixes a few other bugs that were discovered.

There is a new feature called “Tell Your Friends” that lets users identify friends who are also using BBM. Notifications are sent to contacts on social networks so that invitations to chat can be exchanged. In addition, the upgrade will have some major improvements to language support.

There is also a fix to an issue concerning missing BBM contacts. The app is also available for download through Google Play. On the Android side the upgrade includes the same enhancements hitting the iOS version. It will allow you to create categories in your contact lists to organize your BBM contacts and let you sort and filter your BBM groups.

The changes to BBM for Android and iOS include some new features that are designed to make the cross-platform version look more like the original BBM. It wasn’t too long ago when BBM was exclusive to BlackBerry and a major selling point for BlackBerry devices.

As I mentioned above, when BBM for Android and iOS was successfully launched it did not take long at all to reach 10 million downloads. With this upgrade, I wonder what BlackBerry can expect in the way of downloads.