Windows Phone 8.1 BBM Beta

[sc:mobile-category ]I have to admit that I have used a BlackBerry for work for a very long time and have NEVER used BBM.  Overall I’m not a big fan of instant messaging, but do use it a bit on my Windows Phone and at least one of my friends still has a BB so I thought I’d give the BBM beta a try.

First off, it is still a beta and I did have a few ‘weird’ moments with it hanging or not loading, but overall it’s pretty stable.  Getting connected to my friend was a little bit of a challenge as well.  At first I sent him an invite but he never received it.  Then he sent me one which I received the notification for but it didn’t appear in the app.  Finally after reloading BBM a couple of times it showed up and we connected.

The next day he disappeared from my contact list in BBM for a few hours and then came back.  Beta… definitely beta.

Otherwise it’s much like WhatsApp or Viber (or more aptly, they’re much like BBM).  There’s no compelling reason to use it over those apps.  Beyond the instability of the beta there is one big feature missing, Toast notifications do not contain any contact or message details, it just flash by a “BBM has a new notification” message and you have to go in to the app to see who has messaged you.  Presumably that will be fixed shortly, but it is amazing how annoying it really is right now to me 😉

I currently have 5 messaging apps on my phone (Kik, WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and BBM) and really would like to cut that down to one or two.  I don’t think BBM would make the cut.

Avatar photo

Greg

Greg is the head cat at JumbleCat, with over 20 years of experience in the computer field, he has done everything from programming to hardware solutions. You can contact Greg via the contact form on the main menu above.

More Posts - Website

Avatar photo

Greg

Greg is the head cat at JumbleCat, with over 20 years of experience in the computer field, he has done everything from programming to hardware solutions. You can contact Greg via the contact form on the main menu above.