We may be impatient users, but it's clear
BlackBerry still has some work to do with BBM on
Android
It's hard not to lead off this week without talking
about BlackBerry Messenger. BBM was supposed to
land on Android on Saturda y. Obviously, that didn't
happen, and on Saturday night BlackBerry finally
publicly explained what was going on.
Servers were crunched under the weight of what the
company says was "more than 1.1 million active users
in the first 8 hours." Not sure if that included the
iPhone version — which did launch as planned on
Saturday. But either way, that's doesn't bode well for
how things might have gone even if the release had
happened on schedule. If we're supposed to take
BlackBerry seriously as a services company going
forward and not for hardware — the company last
week announced a nearly $1 billion loss and layoffs of
4,500 employees — the services will have to be
bulletproof to even compete.
Obviously, they were not.
BBM may be a great service on Android, but the
app is pretty lacking.
Then there's the matter of the BBM app itself. Yes, I've
seen it. Even used it a tad. I'm still going to need to be
persuaded that I actually need BBM as a service, but
the app itself just isn't good enough to be something
I'd want to use on a daily basis. It just feels heavy and
sluggish. And I'm no HOLOYOLO purist, but why
reinvent the design and function wheel when you
don't have to?
Also, as it stood over the weekend, there was no
graceful way to log out of BBM. Now to be fair, there's
no conspicuous "Log out" button in Google Hangouts
either. (You have to go into the app settings, then the
account, and then choose "Sign out.") But I simply
don't have faith in the BBM application to want to
leave it on all the time — and same goes for the
service.
A lot of folks have (rightfully) asked what the big deal
is about BBM. Why we care so much. I still can't really
answer the first question, having never been a real
part of the CrackBerry Nation. As the publisher of this
fine website, though, I can easily answer that there are
millions and millions of BlackBerry users still out
there — and millions more who have made the jump
to Android. It'd be silly to dismiss it outright. In our
straw poll last week, more than 63 percent of the
nearly 7,900 votes cast said they'd be using BBM.
I'm not sure how to fix the issue of fake apps in
Google Play — or if it *should* be fixed.
And then there's the matter of all the fake BBM apps
that were in Google Play. This isn't BlackBerry's fault,
of course. Anyone can submit just about anything to
Google Play, and have it appear in just a couple hours.
In fact, even after Saturday's fake app purge, there
appeared to be a new crop in Google Play. Not sure if
we have Google Play's minders to thank, or a caching
thing on my end, but the new crop was gone within an
hour of my having mentioned them on Google+.
We had an interesting discussion going on Saturday on
Google+ about whether Google needs to actively
prevent spam apps like that from even making it to
public listing. On one hand, there's the desire for a
more quality app store. On the other, there's the
desire for an open app store, without the Draconian
policies of, say, maybe, I dunno — Apple.
I like open. I like that a schmuck like me can make an
app, submit it and see it appear in a public app store
just hours later. And I like that all developers are,
more or less, on equal footing when it comes to this.
Quality apps can get some special treatment, sure, but
that's the market at work. It encourages developers to
make better apps. On the other hand, I like an app
store that's not flooded by fake/spammy/scammy
apps.
There's got to be some middle ground to be had there.
Hopefully we'll see Google improve on that.
And, finally — and this is something I tried to point
out Saturday in our post on the fake BBM apps — you
have to take a little responsibility for what you're
downloading. If you got a chance to read any of the
"reviews" on those fake BBM apps, well, they were as
entertaining as they were sad. Same goes for the app
descriptions, which were so packed full of unrelated
keywords the search algorithms perhaps had no
choice.
Read the app descriptions. Read the reviews. And
above all, read the permissions. And if you still need
help, just ask . We'll be more than happy to take a look
for ya.
A few other things.
Glad to see Focal be released in
Google Play. I still think the UI's a
little busy — that's customizable,
though — but it's great to see some
sort of third-party Photosphere
capability. I'll be keeping an eye on
this one.
Can't mention Focal without at least
acknowledging the drama with the
whole Cyanogen Inc. thing. We're
going to focus more on the end
product and let others worry about
how the sausage is made, I think.
But what's open-source without a
little drama, right?
I'll try to get down to the bottom of
the Nexus 7 LTE/tethering thing this
week, but it's another travel week, so
we'll see. Check out our latest
podcast for the lowdown.
(And I'm totally proud of the title on
Episode 151, comprising those
previous two bullet points.)
So we've been promoting the
Android Central App via an ad on the
Facebook app for a week now.
Haven't really seen a spike in installs
or anything, but it's been an
interesting experiment, and it was
relatively easy to do. Facebook's
done well with that.
Not sure it's really increased installs,
though. The banner we put on the
sites did far more for that.
I'm trying to reconcile my non-work
blogging habits. I love Google+, but I
think I'm going to make better use of
the site my wife and I set up,
Nickinson.net . Better to control your
own platform, right?
I'm back on the Moto X after a
couple weeks away. I think I've
decided to have hope in a software
fix for the camera. Can't come soon
enough.
That's it for this week. Another few days of travel, so
it'll be a busy one. Let's get to work.
Source: androidcentral.com
BlackBerry still has some work to do with BBM on
Android
It's hard not to lead off this week without talking
about BlackBerry Messenger. BBM was supposed to
land on Android on Saturda y. Obviously, that didn't
happen, and on Saturday night BlackBerry finally
publicly explained what was going on.
Servers were crunched under the weight of what the
company says was "more than 1.1 million active users
in the first 8 hours." Not sure if that included the
iPhone version — which did launch as planned on
Saturday. But either way, that's doesn't bode well for
how things might have gone even if the release had
happened on schedule. If we're supposed to take
BlackBerry seriously as a services company going
forward and not for hardware — the company last
week announced a nearly $1 billion loss and layoffs of
4,500 employees — the services will have to be
bulletproof to even compete.
Obviously, they were not.
BBM may be a great service on Android, but the
app is pretty lacking.
Then there's the matter of the BBM app itself. Yes, I've
seen it. Even used it a tad. I'm still going to need to be
persuaded that I actually need BBM as a service, but
the app itself just isn't good enough to be something
I'd want to use on a daily basis. It just feels heavy and
sluggish. And I'm no HOLOYOLO purist, but why
reinvent the design and function wheel when you
don't have to?
Also, as it stood over the weekend, there was no
graceful way to log out of BBM. Now to be fair, there's
no conspicuous "Log out" button in Google Hangouts
either. (You have to go into the app settings, then the
account, and then choose "Sign out.") But I simply
don't have faith in the BBM application to want to
leave it on all the time — and same goes for the
service.
A lot of folks have (rightfully) asked what the big deal
is about BBM. Why we care so much. I still can't really
answer the first question, having never been a real
part of the CrackBerry Nation. As the publisher of this
fine website, though, I can easily answer that there are
millions and millions of BlackBerry users still out
there — and millions more who have made the jump
to Android. It'd be silly to dismiss it outright. In our
straw poll last week, more than 63 percent of the
nearly 7,900 votes cast said they'd be using BBM.
I'm not sure how to fix the issue of fake apps in
Google Play — or if it *should* be fixed.
And then there's the matter of all the fake BBM apps
that were in Google Play. This isn't BlackBerry's fault,
of course. Anyone can submit just about anything to
Google Play, and have it appear in just a couple hours.
In fact, even after Saturday's fake app purge, there
appeared to be a new crop in Google Play. Not sure if
we have Google Play's minders to thank, or a caching
thing on my end, but the new crop was gone within an
hour of my having mentioned them on Google+.
We had an interesting discussion going on Saturday on
Google+ about whether Google needs to actively
prevent spam apps like that from even making it to
public listing. On one hand, there's the desire for a
more quality app store. On the other, there's the
desire for an open app store, without the Draconian
policies of, say, maybe, I dunno — Apple.
I like open. I like that a schmuck like me can make an
app, submit it and see it appear in a public app store
just hours later. And I like that all developers are,
more or less, on equal footing when it comes to this.
Quality apps can get some special treatment, sure, but
that's the market at work. It encourages developers to
make better apps. On the other hand, I like an app
store that's not flooded by fake/spammy/scammy
apps.
There's got to be some middle ground to be had there.
Hopefully we'll see Google improve on that.
And, finally — and this is something I tried to point
out Saturday in our post on the fake BBM apps — you
have to take a little responsibility for what you're
downloading. If you got a chance to read any of the
"reviews" on those fake BBM apps, well, they were as
entertaining as they were sad. Same goes for the app
descriptions, which were so packed full of unrelated
keywords the search algorithms perhaps had no
choice.
Read the app descriptions. Read the reviews. And
above all, read the permissions. And if you still need
help, just ask . We'll be more than happy to take a look
for ya.
A few other things.
Glad to see Focal be released in
Google Play. I still think the UI's a
little busy — that's customizable,
though — but it's great to see some
sort of third-party Photosphere
capability. I'll be keeping an eye on
this one.
Can't mention Focal without at least
acknowledging the drama with the
whole Cyanogen Inc. thing. We're
going to focus more on the end
product and let others worry about
how the sausage is made, I think.
But what's open-source without a
little drama, right?
I'll try to get down to the bottom of
the Nexus 7 LTE/tethering thing this
week, but it's another travel week, so
we'll see. Check out our latest
podcast for the lowdown.
(And I'm totally proud of the title on
Episode 151, comprising those
previous two bullet points.)
So we've been promoting the
Android Central App via an ad on the
Facebook app for a week now.
Haven't really seen a spike in installs
or anything, but it's been an
interesting experiment, and it was
relatively easy to do. Facebook's
done well with that.
Not sure it's really increased installs,
though. The banner we put on the
sites did far more for that.
I'm trying to reconcile my non-work
blogging habits. I love Google+, but I
think I'm going to make better use of
the site my wife and I set up,
Nickinson.net . Better to control your
own platform, right?
I'm back on the Moto X after a
couple weeks away. I think I've
decided to have hope in a software
fix for the camera. Can't come soon
enough.
That's it for this week. Another few days of travel, so
it'll be a busy one. Let's get to work.
Source: androidcentral.com
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