BBM, BlackBerry Messenger Updates, Changes to BBM

If you’re running BBM‘s beta version for Windows Phone, you can now get a new version available that makes quite a few fixes and improvements. These improvements have been detailed by BlackBerry:

In This Build

Notification Improvements
Providing impactful notifications to users has long been one of the aspects of BBM that our users love. We’re taking that a step further in improving the BBM for Windows :

  • BBM for Windows will now see message details as part of the notification without having to open the app
  • BBM users that send their BBM for Windows Phone friends a message will now see a “D” even if their Windows Phone friend doesn’t have BBM running
  • The new notification number displayed will now indicate the number of new chats (previously displayed the total number of new messages)
  • Even More Features

Since the last BBM v1 for Windows Phone beta build, we’ve also introduced:

  • People you know suggestions now appear full screen during setup
  • Invitation screen updates
  • Long press to move contact into category
  • UI treatment to make groups stand out in contact list
  • Implemented Contacts pinning from Homepage
  • Groups invite improvements
  • Support for new emoticons
  • Barcode scanner/view finder display
  • Software Quality Improvements

The story for this updated version of BBM for Windows Phone doesn’t end with the new features. We’ve carefully pursued through issues that you’ve raised on the discussions forums and other feedback tools to target software quality improvements for this release too. The most notable software fixes are below:

  • Selecting BBM contact crashes app after changing BBID password
  • BBM stops responding when using emoticons
  • Portion of BBM screen gets black for some time while selecting contacts to invite to a group after it has been created
  • Chats – Share location- Map not displaying the accurate location when tapped on the chat bubble
  • User is taken to the sent invitation tab on hitting back after opening an email invite
  • Invitation: Scanning barcode seen in scanning device screen become stretched
  • Invites: Contact is not adding directly to the users contact
  • Feeds: Text ‘No updates’ displayed instead of ‘No new items’

BlackBerry also detailed some known issues with BBM in its beta app on Windows Phone:

  • Notifications for received location are not received on the home screen; only after opening BBM
  • Notifications for received pictures do not handle the HQ automatic request
  • Notification not received when a user leaves multi-chat. Only after open BBM the notification is received
  • No notifications when users join a group
  • Group picture comment top notification has no content after the colon
  • Existing contacts show on the list of “Find friends” and “Add, Invite to BBM”
  • After 3 notifications (3 chats) subsequent notifications are not received, sometimes no notifications at all
  • Only 4 notifications for voice note received out of 7
  • The notification number indicator is out of sync with the notification on the top of the screen

BBM Channels and other features are not yet on Windows Phone, but we suspect these features will be coming soon.

Download the new BBM Beta for WP here.

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By Josh Robert Nay

Josh Robert Nay is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TruTower. He has worked in the telecommunications industry since 2003 and specializes in GSM based technology. He also uses (too many) VoIP apps and is a long-time user of BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone. He adores anything having to do with space exploration and writing. In addition to the links below, he can be found on LinkedIn and can also be found on his website at http://www.joshrobertnay.com.