Postponement could last at least a week as BlackBerry struggles to shut out unreleased version which has had a million downloads on Google Play store
BlackBerry has postponed the launch of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messaging app on the iPhone and Android platforms, after a rogue version was released onto Google Play over the weekend.
The postponement will hold up the official release for at least a week, Andrew Bocking, head of BBM at BlackBerry, said in a blogpost. He explained that the release of an "older, unreleased version" of BBM for Android which was posted on file-sharing sites and then onto Google Play interfered with the company's plans for launch of its official, finished app.
The early version "resulted in volumes of data traffic orders of magnitude higher than normal for each active user and impacted the system in abnormal ways", Bocking wrote. But if the company had gone ahead and released the official version, "we could not block users of the unreleased version".
The rogue version has now had more than a million downloads, Bocking said. A search on Google Play for "BBM" presently shows a number of fake apps, including one which claims to be from "Activision LLC" - but is not associated with the famous videogame publisher which runs the Warcraft franchise.
One developer who offered a version of BBM on Google Play last week told the Guardian by email "Our purpose isn't bad, we are tying to make some money. Yes, this is illegal, so Google will delete this app 4-6 hours later." The app was deleted soon afterwards.
Fake apps can make money by offering adverts. Some of the apps garner five-star ratings by forcing users to give them a five-star rating before the app will start working - thus pushing them up the rankings.
For BlackBerry, which is struggling to open up potential new lines of revenue after the implosion of its handset business during the past quarter - leading to a writeoff of $1bn - the launch of BBM on other platforms is key to a future strategy built around services. BBM has been viewed as a potentially valuable element of the company, which hassigned a letter of intent for a leveraged buyout by a Canadian finance group.
Bocking said that the BlackBerry team is now trying to adjust the system to block the fake app when the official one goes live.
A Google spokesperson said: "we remove infringing apps as soon as we become aware of them." Google's Developer Program Policies tells developers not to use "impersonation or deceptive behaviour" - though the evidence from the store suggests this is repeatedly flouted.
BlackBerry has postponed the launch of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messaging app on the iPhone and Android platforms, after a rogue version was released onto Google Play over the weekend.
The postponement will hold up the official release for at least a week, Andrew Bocking, head of BBM at BlackBerry, said in a blogpost. He explained that the release of an "older, unreleased version" of BBM for Android which was posted on file-sharing sites and then onto Google Play interfered with the company's plans for launch of its official, finished app.
The early version "resulted in volumes of data traffic orders of magnitude higher than normal for each active user and impacted the system in abnormal ways", Bocking wrote. But if the company had gone ahead and released the official version, "we could not block users of the unreleased version".
The rogue version has now had more than a million downloads, Bocking said. A search on Google Play for "BBM" presently shows a number of fake apps, including one which claims to be from "Activision LLC" - but is not associated with the famous videogame publisher which runs the Warcraft franchise.
One developer who offered a version of BBM on Google Play last week told the Guardian by email "Our purpose isn't bad, we are tying to make some money. Yes, this is illegal, so Google will delete this app 4-6 hours later." The app was deleted soon afterwards.
Fake apps can make money by offering adverts. Some of the apps garner five-star ratings by forcing users to give them a five-star rating before the app will start working - thus pushing them up the rankings.
For BlackBerry, which is struggling to open up potential new lines of revenue after the implosion of its handset business during the past quarter - leading to a writeoff of $1bn - the launch of BBM on other platforms is key to a future strategy built around services. BBM has been viewed as a potentially valuable element of the company, which hassigned a letter of intent for a leveraged buyout by a Canadian finance group.
Bocking said that the BlackBerry team is now trying to adjust the system to block the fake app when the official one goes live.
A Google spokesperson said: "we remove infringing apps as soon as we become aware of them." Google's Developer Program Policies tells developers not to use "impersonation or deceptive behaviour" - though the evidence from the store suggests this is repeatedly flouted.
No comments:
Post a Comment