Now that January 30, 2013 is confirmed as the official launch date of Research In Motion’s (RIM) BB10 OS and hardware , the Canadian smartphone manufacturer is now looking to create more waves among its devotees and the greater mobile device community by announcing details of the new version of the company’s wildly popular Blackberry Messenger (BBM) system. According to this latest update, RIM will introduce a new version of BBM, 7.0 that will include a bounty of new features.
With the introduction of BBM 7.0 Blackberry users will get to experience “real time engagement”, as RIM has decided to wander away from the “real time chat” that has been associated with previous versions. The minute distinction between engagement and chat hinges around RIM’s announcement of BBM Voice. The BBM Voice feature will enable Blackberry users to make calls free of charge to the BBM contacts through WiFi, no matter where they happen to be in the world.
This means that after the release of BBM 7.0, Blackberry users will be able to save lots of voice minutes, long distance charges and roaming, providing value for RIM’s smartphones as compared to rival products such as Apple’s iPhone. On top of that, RIM has also made it clear that this new BBM update will even run seamlessly on BlackBerry devices which are powered by OS 6 and 7. This will allow more people and their BBM contacts to take advantage of the valuable feature. Additionally, RIM is also planning to make BBM Voice available for its OS 5 devices.
BBM Voice is quite similar to MSN Messenger in certain respects, as an indicator lets users know about their online and offline contacts. It also indicates which contacts’ smartphones do not support BBM Voice. Furthermore, users will be able to start a voice call straight from a BBM chat and switch back between the two immediately with this latest update.
BBM users will also be privy to a batch of 16 new emoticons in BBM 7.0, which includes things like a camera icon, rain, sun, lightbulb, anger, hang loose, snow, thunderstorm, dizzy and tired. BlackBerry’s App Upgrade Notification will also be available in this new version that will alert the user when a new update for BBM is available. Lastly this new update for BBM will feature information and profile information including name, photo and contact groups of a user that are directly linked with BBID, so that this information can switch to Blackberry 10 without any irritation or inconvenience.
At this point in time, RIM is not working on any plan that will allow users of BBM 7.0 to make conference calls, but BBM video is definitely in the cards. As CEO of RIM, Thorsten Heins firmed that Blackberry 10 will feature BBM Video. To the extent availability of BBM 7.0 is concerned, Blackberry users will get it “before the end of the year”.
Source: Mobile Syrup
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