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BBM -- does it matter?

K

kwalla

Well-Known Member
So.. now that BBM for Android... I'm asking myself, does it matter?

Once upon a time I had a Blackberry and recall liking BBM, but that was when I didn't have unlimited texting.

Other than seeing when a message is seen.. is BBM really better than a text/SMS?

Isn't it really the same (at this point) as Facebook Messenger? Or is BBM more anonymous?
 
To me it seems too little too late but I'll still get an account going because some friends in the business world still use Blackberry devices (lol).

Also, is text messaging, Hangouts, Talk, et al encrypted? I know that other than the message read indicator the fact that BBM was encrypted was always a selling point.
 
I need to look at Hangouts.

I tend to use FB's messenger just because I can talk on my phone or laptop and not miss the conversation and it's transparent to who I'm talking with. And, for people not on FB, I can send SMS from the FB Android App, so it's two-for-one for me.

Though... generally dislike Facebook. I'd love to find another App that lets me do the same (send from phone/laptop seamlessly). IM platforms lost their luster with me long ago -- some people have Yahoo, some AIM, some whatever.

If BBM has a desktop application, I'm interested.. but otherwise, what's the point?

Perhaps what I really need to do is research sending SMS from my laptop -- with the condition of being able to see the full history of the conversation from either phone/laptop. I don't think that's possible yet... unless something like AirDroid is used.
 
I tried it yesterday on my G2 and have since deleted it. I saw no option for texting in landscape and I'm not about to do all portrait typing all the time. For some reason, auto rotate didn't work inside the app?
 
kwalla said:
I need to look at Hangouts.

I tend to use FB's messenger just because I can talk on my phone or laptop and not miss the conversation and it's transparent to who I'm talking with. And, for people not on FB, I can send SMS from the FB Android App, so it's two-for-one for me.

Though... generally dislike Facebook. I'd love to find another App that lets me do the same (send from phone/laptop seamlessly). IM platforms lost their luster with me long ago -- some people have Yahoo, some AIM, some whatever.

If BBM has a desktop application, I'm interested.. but otherwise, what's the point?

Perhaps what I really need to do is research sending SMS from my laptop -- with the condition of being able to see the full history of the conversation from either phone/laptop. I don't think that's possible yet... unless something like AirDroid is used.
Click to expand...

Google Voice does the seamless thing pretty nicely.
 
GilMikalian said:
Google Voice does the seamless thing pretty nicely.
Click to expand...

Hangouts works better. It also integrates voice calls, video chat & picture/file sharing. It can be done from a PC or your mobile phone and you can transfer back and forth seamlessly to the recipient.
 
OstrichSaK said:
Hangouts works better. It also integrates voice calls, video chat & picture/file sharing. It can be done from a PC or your mobile phone and you can transfer back and forth seamlessly to the recipient.
Click to expand...

I don't see that Hangouts (which is an absurd name) handles SMS, does it?

Google Voice could work, but it doesn't do MMS yet (at least not that I know) and I haven't ported my number all the way over to it, just use it for free visual voicemail.
 
kwalla said:
I don't see that Hangouts (which is an absurd name) handles SMS, does it?

Google Voice could work, but it doesn't do MMS yet (at least not that I know) and I haven't ported my number all the way over to it, just use it for free visual voicemail.
Click to expand...

It will in a matter of days.

Hangouts and message apps are becoming one and the same
 
I finally found someone I know who also had installed BBM.. so I'll give me review since I started this thread.

Having to do pin sharing thing (send via SMS) was... absolutely retro in feeling. I couldn't help but giggle that I was sending a message to someone so I could connect and send them messages on a different platform.

There's no landscape... at least not on my Nexus 4.

There's very little of the conversation history that you can see, the header bar (showing who I'm talking to), keypad, and bar with attach picture/add person/icons are all way too big. I can see two or three lines of conversation history.

The positions of the conversations are... I think... backwards. My messages (outgoing) are on the left and incoming are on the right. I can't think the last time I saw it setup that way.

I can't imagine wanting to use this on a daily basis.
 
kwalla said:
I finally found someone I know who also had installed BBM.. so I'll give me review since I started this thread.

Having to do pin sharing thing (send via SMS) was... absolutely retro in feeling. I couldn't help but giggle that I was sending a message to someone so I could connect and send them messages on a different platform.

There's no landscape... at least not on my Nexus 4.

There's very little of the conversation history that you can see, the header bar (showing who I'm talking to), keypad, and bar with attach picture/add person/icons are all way too big. I can see two or three lines of conversation history.

The positions of the conversations are... I think... backwards. My messages (outgoing) are on the left and incoming are on the right. I can't think the last time I saw it setup that way.

I can't imagine wanting to use this on a daily basis.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I had a BB and used BBM and your review brought back a lot of memories. Not good either. Sounds like it's been the same thing forever so even though I got it installed (finally!) I haven't added any contacts or given out my PIN so I may just uninstall and call it day. Now that Hangouts finally allows for online status and friend list sorting of sorts it's finally my favorite messaging option. It would be nice to have message confirmation like BBM but that's a rather small exchange for all the other features Hangouts brings. I guess this looong wait for BBM was for not from the seems of it.

Viva Google! :smokingsomb:
 
I use it and love it i was a die hard bb user about 3 mnths and missed bbm alot and have friends. With it and they also missed it and we use it all the time now
 
Once a hardcore BB user, it's time and that of BBM has passed. No longer relevant for my workflow.
 
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