Samsung is promoting BlackBerry Messenger in Africa, “coming soon to Galaxy smartphones”

BlackBerry Messenger was supposed to hit the Android and iOS app stores today, but there’s nothing just yet (but you can try the beta). More interesting is that Samsung has now kicked-off its promotion of BBM – earlier this month the two companies struck a deal to promote the messenger in Africa.

CrackBerry forum member PauloPlmenta spotted an ad of the Galaxy S4 running BlackBerry Messenger during a football game (Manchester United vs. Chelsea) broadcast in Mozambique.

Samsung Mobile Ghana is also taking part of the campaign by posting teasers on Facebook.

There was even a video ad that prematurely made its way to YouTube, but has since been pulled down. I’m not sure if this is the same video, but it shows the Galaxy S4 next to what appears to be the Galaxy Star and the Galaxy Note 10.1. It’s not clear how long this video will stay up.

Anyway, the BlackBerry Messenger will be available through Samsung’s own app store (but in the Play Store too). Samsung, of course, has its own messenger, ChatON, but that one is yet to gain any sort of traction.

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BlackBerry Messenger beta for Android and iOS now available

The hotly anticipated BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS that was officially announced by BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, back at the company’s annual Live 2013 conference is a step closer to its official release as the app is now in its beta testing stages.

The cross-platform version of the upcoming instant messenger is available to a number of developers and beta users to test the app on their Android and iOS devices.

The BBM beta is available only with an invitation from the BlackBerry team. The beta version of the app currently requires Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and above operating system, while the iOS version runs on iOS 6 and higher.

Now, that the application is in its beta phase, it seems likely that BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS will meet its “this summer” release goal as set earlier.

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BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android and iOS in September

BlackBerry’s CEO Thorsten Heins announced that the popular BlackBerry Messenger will be available on Android and iOS back at the BlackBerry live 2013 conference. We then had a tweet from the BlackBerry Worldwide tweeter account stating that the app will be available on June 27.

Unfortunately, the account didn’t turn out to be an official BlackkBerry affair and the BlackBerry Messenger for the Android and iOS did not make its appearance on the suggested date. However, the much-awaited BBM for the two of the most popular smartphone platforms will be available “this summer”, according to the BlackBerry India managing director.

The BlackBerry executive clarified that what he meant is North American summer, which lasts until September. This basically means we are two months away from getting the trademark messanger service on non-BlackBerry smartphones now.

Source

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BlackBerry A10 to be game-focused and shaped like a Samsung Galaxy S4

have claimed that the forthcoming BlackBerry A10 smartphone is going to be the most capable, powerful BlackBerry yet with a media-friendly 5-inch Super AMOLED display.

More interestingly, the BlackBerry A10 will come with "a huge focus on gaming."

Despite being geared towards "power and gaming," the A10 will only come with a dual-core processor. Apparently, BlackBerry has been unable to make the jump to a quad-core architecture - either due to concerns over battery life or because of difficulties optimising BlackBerry 10 for a quad-core setup.

Still, this dual-core CPU will reportedly be backed by a healthy 2GB of RAM, and the BlackBerry A10 will apparently adopt the same silicon as the iPhone, with separate CPU and GPU processors. In the iPhone's case, this has certainly resulted in a string of highly capable gaming smartphones.

The report also has something to say about the BlackBerry A10's design. It'll apparently closely resemble the Samsung Galaxy S4, though if anything it'll be larger. It's also described as being "more rounded and less aggressive-looking" than the BlackBerry Z10.

It's claimed that we can expect to see the BlackBerry A10 launching some time this autumn.

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