Facebook U-turn on BlackBerry support drop; WhatsApp to follow?

Close on the heels of news that online messaging app WhatsApp will drop support for the BlackBerry OS by the end of the year came another blow for the beleaguered smartphone-maker.

Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, said it would stop updating its apps for the BB10 platform after December 2016.

Expectedly, BlackBerry was disappointed.

“We are extremely disappointed in their decision as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands,” Lou lgazzola, who leads BlackBerry’s App Ecosystem and Developer Outreach team, said in a blog post late last month.

BlackBerry urged its customers to “let them know how you feel on social media, using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps”.

And right when you thought BlackBerry was going down faster than you could ask ‘what’s up?’, Facebook decided to give it a little HTML love.

For BlackBerry 10 and BBOS users, the native Facebook app that stopped working last Thursday (March 31) is now being replaced with a web-based app.

“There has been much news regarding our recent blog post about Great Apps on BlackBerry and I want to clarify that Facebook will continue to support BlackBerry 10 and BBOS,” lgazzola wrote in an update blog post.

The new web-based Facebook app for BlackBerry affords users the additional capability of replying to comments – as crazy as it sounds, until now, BlackBerry users could neither post Facebook comments on their timelines through their smartphones nor check replies to their (web-)posted comments on their phones.

One the undisputed king of smartphones, the beleaguered BlackBerry is now just a footnote in the smartphones ranking table dominated by Samsung and Apple at the top, followed by a troika of Chinese brands – Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo.

But BlackBerry, it must be noted, isn’t giving up just yet – at least not without a fight.

The firm on Monday (April 4) announced tweaks in its popular BBM service that will allow users to retract a message or image sent in error in addition to adding the functionality of making a message self-destruct (a la Snapchat) after a pre-determined time.

BBM has been made available for BlackBerry, Android and iOS platforms, and until Monday, these features were art of the paid service, for which BlackBerry used to charge Dh45 ($12).

It is now free.

“Building on the renowned immediacy, reliability and security inherent to BBM, the new release provides unmatched level of privacy and control to BBM users without any subscription fees,” said Matthew Talbot, SVP, BBM at BlackBerry.

Will that turn around BlackBerry’s fortunes? Hardly. But it may help keep at least some of the loyal users within the BlackBerry fold for a tad longer than December 31, 2016.

Now if only WhatsApp too decides to bail out the beleaguered BlackBerry.

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