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I guess I’m the only one here that remembers BBM. That was before WhatsApp, Signal, RCS, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or any of the other options we have today

I guess I’m the only one here that remembers BBM. That was before WhatsApp, Signal, RCS, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or any of the other options we have today. It was also one of the few ways to message someone internationally without paying for international texts. People wanted to be on BBM, but you couldn’t without both a BlackBerry and having BBM services activated on your cell plan (often for a premium). Iirc, BB Messenger was centralized and managed all accounts (email, sms, BBM) and could upgrade sms to BBM if contacting another blackberry user. RIM was sitting on a gold mine but they didn’t use it right and then released BBM on Android (and iPhone, I think) only after the world had moved on and no one cared.

mvdtnz 3y ago
Why would you think you're the only one who remembers that?
paxys 3y ago
Blackberry thought BBM was their moat, and for a while it did seem that way. Teenagers worldwide were buying what had been a boring business phone just to get a BBM ID. Then some shinier phones came along and turned out no one really cared about which app they used for texting.
dfox 3y ago
BBM on the BB devices used efficient transport separate from the normal IP support of the network, which is why it was viewed as premium service by the carriers. iOS does something similar as a transport for APNs (and thus iMessages) with two important differences: Apple has somehow managed to convince most carriers to not bill that as premium service and can sidestep the carriers that would want to bill that as a premium service (that is the core of what the “Additional rates may apply” message in the iOS activation/onboarding process refers to, it involves few round-trips to Apple servers over SMS). BBM on Android did not do any kind of these optimizations and thus was somewhat of a battery hog (that would not fly on iPhone, so I assume it used APNS there).
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  APNs just travels over regular IP, no? It must on non-mobile devices which support it (Watch, iPad, TV, Mac, etc) Are you confusing Apple Push Notification service (APNs) for mobile Access Point Name (APN)?
  - aeyes 3y ago
    APNs opens a TCP connection to Apple to receive pushes
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  Using iMessage on an iPhone 4 circa 2011 in other countries required a monthly surcharge.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Why would you think you're the only one who remembers that?

paxys 3y ago

Blackberry thought BBM was their moat, and for a while it did seem that way. Teenagers worldwide were buying what had been a boring business phone just to get a BBM ID. Then some shinier phones came along and turned out no one really cared about which app they used for texting.

dfox 3y ago

BBM on the BB devices used efficient transport separate from the normal IP support of the network, which is why it was viewed as premium service by the carriers. iOS does something similar as a transport for APNs (and thus iMessages) with two important differences: Apple has somehow managed to convince most carriers to not bill that as premium service and can sidestep the carriers that would want to bill that as a premium service (that is the core of what the “Additional rates may apply” message in the iOS activation/onboarding process refers to, it involves few round-trips to Apple servers over SMS). BBM on Android did not do any kind of these optimizations and thus was somewhat of a battery hog (that would not fly on iPhone, so I assume it used APNS there).

madeofpalk 3y ago
APNs just travels over regular IP, no? It must on non-mobile devices which support it (Watch, iPad, TV, Mac, etc) Are you confusing Apple Push Notification service (APNs) for mobile Access Point Name (APN)?
- aeyes 3y ago
  APNs opens a TCP connection to Apple to receive pushes
ComputerGuru 3y ago
Using iMessage on an iPhone 4 circa 2011 in other countries required a monthly surcharge.