The folks at RIM are no doubt devoting plenty of time and manpower to their long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system, but they’ve found the time to whip up a few app updates to please the nearly 55 million BBM users out there.
Consider the newly updated Twitter and Facebook apps — users will be able to share their sparkling wit with their BBM buddies from within each of the apps, ensuring none of their friends will be able to escape their ironic jabs and repartee. BlackBerry’s Travel and App World apps are joining in the BBM-connected fun as well, and will allow users to share their travel plan and recently downloaded apps respectively.
And then there’s BBM Music. I’ve been pretty critical of RIM’s BBM Music service in the past, but RIM just keeps plugging away at it. If you’re not familiar with the service, the key concept behind it is that users can access to the music stored in their BBM buddies’ playlists , which incentivizes the social experience that RIM has been so keen on building with BBM. With the new update in place, new BBM friend recommendations will appear right in the app, which should help bolster some of those fledgling music collections.
Oh, and last but not least, the BBM app has itself has been updated to version 6.2. What does that mean for users? Animated avatars and the ability to send voice notes! What would we have ever done without those?
Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP of Developer Relations, noted that over 800 BBM-connected apps have been released since the company officially opened up their messaging platform to outside devs last July. Sadly, most of the apps listed above won’t officially join the BBM-connected roster just yet — the updated Twitter app is available now, but the rest will hit the company’s app store within the next 10 days.
