Tag: blackberry

The Canadian handset maker has dumped their physical QWERTY keyboards to attract new users.

While other smartphones from the Canadian manufacturer will continue to have the distinctive physical QWERTY keyboards, the latest device to be launched, the BlackBerry Leap, is losing this feature in favor of touch screen typing.

The goal is to be able to help the brand to appeal to younger professionals who are used to this mobile experience.

The BlackBerry Leap has been designed with younger professionals in mind. While the company is still focused on the business world as opposed to the consumer market, it has recognized that people under a certain age are comfortable functioning with a touch screen keyboard. Therefore, they have dropped the keypad for this device, in order to help them to compete with the Samsung Galaxy 6, the Apple iPhone 6, and other popular premium devices within the business community.

The BlackBerry Leap has also had a much more attractive price tag associated with it, to improve its appeal.

Unlike its notably more expensive competition, the retail price for the new Leap smartphone is set at $275. That is about half the price of the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6. The device, itself, had previously been launched, but more information was revealed in order to help to boost the hype surrounding its release, which will be in April.

That said, there is still some mystery surrounding the device. While it is known that the Leap mobile device will still include the enterprise management and security tools and features that have become synonymous with BlackBerry smartphones, the nature of the keyboard for this device has not yet been made completely clear.

These smartphones will still have built in protection against malware, backup features, as well as wipe and restore capabilities. Owners of the BlackBerry Leap can also expect to take advantage of some of the company’s apps, such as the Blend, which gives users the ability to access their smartphone content with their tablets and laptop computers. The company has been taking a number of new tacks to work its way back into relevance within the business market.

The BlackBerry Messenger application has now passed this vital milestone since its launch in 2013.

It has been a year and a half since the BBM mobile app first became available on the Google Play store so that it could be used by Android device owners, and now it has broken past a very important milestone, having reached 100 million downloads.

The BBM stickers have also been making some important progress, as they have been sent over one billion times.

Users on Android devices are hooked on the mobile app stickers from BBM, as they have sent them over one billion times in a period of a year and a half. This, and the increase in the downloads of the messenger app has, according to BlackBerry, helped to illustrate the “tremendous momentum” of their instant messaging service. That said, it is important to point out that the number of active users and the number of people who downloaded the service are not exactly the same thing.

The comments from BlackBerry about the popularity of the mobile app shows a considerable and ongoing confidence.

The company has revealed that it strongly believes that its own efforts will continue to help it to push its mobile messenger app figures higher and it will work to take advantage of this considerable momentum.

Comparatively, when looking at other messenger application brands, such as ChatON from Samsung, that service has also broken the 100 million download mark at Android, but at the same time, it is not even being seen as valuable enough to be worthy of continuing onward. Samsung will be shutting down that service before the end of this year.

Equally, WhatsApp currently has 700 million active monthly users – not just downloads – and they exchange an average daily 30 billion messages. That represents a usage that is 50 percent greater than the international SMS message market.

Therefore, while the progress being made by the BBM mobile app should not be ignored, it is the growth that is important, not the actual milestone, so far, as it will have a long way to go before it can be considered a complete turnaround in this area, as well.