BlackBerry 10 will get native WhatsApp app in March
This could be good news for BB, considering a lot of people have criticized the company for not living up to the hype of what was promised to be a full-fledged application range for the new platform.
Soon after the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 in India (read our review here), another news has trickled in that should sound like music to the ears of a lot of users. WhatsApp has confirmed that the native application of its very popular instant messaging app will arrive on the BB10 platform in March 2013. The news comes via the Twitter account of WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora, who responded to a couple of user queries by saying “WhatsApp is coming to BB10 sometime in March.” Though no particular date has been confirmed, March is just a week away. Guessing we will not have to wait too long!
It is very clear that BlackBerry aims at no less than an attempt to fairly command a premium price for its flagship device, the BlackBerry Z10. But for that to succeed, the application platform still needs to be worked on. BlackBerry had proudly played up the fact that it had 70,000 apps ready at the time of the BB10 launch, but quite a few popular apps are still missing in action.
However, the confirmation from WhatsApp must be a boost for BlackBerry, which was still struggling to explain as to why Instagram would not be offering a native app for BlackBerry 10. The popular photo sharing network had specified that there is no native app in the works, and the ported version is facing some serious technical hurdles.
Even when BlackBerry 10 was launched, WhatsApp had hinted that it will be releasing a native app for BlackBerry’s new operating system. At that time, it was considered a major victory for BlackBerry, because just a month earlier, WhatsApp had said that they will not be working on a BB10 app. Essentially, WhatsApp is an alternative to BlackBerry’s own Messenger, popularly known as BBM. The limitation of BBM is that it can function only between BlackBerry devices. But the latest version of BBM brings in Wi-Fi connectivity as well as Audio and Video chat alternatives.
WhatsApp, is a cross platform instant messaging app, and is very popular with a wide demographic of users. The network reported that 10 billion messages were sent on its network in one day, back in August 2012. The application is currently available on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS7 and prior, Symbian and even on Nokia S40 Asha phones.
Source: https://twitter.com/neerajarora