BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is counting heavily on its popular chat application BBM and it therefore making all possible efforts to improvise the app and make it more attractive for the users. Recently, the company announced another major updates to BBM. This update will bring with it new features designed for privacy and control.
‘Timer’ feature for BBM
First update is a new ephemeral ‘timer’ feature is there with most of the messaging apps and Snapchat was the first one to introduce this. The Canadian company is following the footsteps of its competitors and it too has decided to introduce one such feature.
The new feature from BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) allows the users to choose for what duration they want the receivers to view the messages and pictures send. A user can do so by hitting the timer and choosing the time duration for the images and texts to be displayed. The recipient will be required to touch and hold on the chat message for seeing the content which will be there only for the duration specified by the sender. The moment recipient takes the fingers off the screen, the message will disappear.
The new feature, which is in ‘Beta’ phase currently, is used by a small number of users on Android and BlackBerry 10. The feature is scheduled for release soon with the BBM 2.5 release for Android and iOS and for BlackBerry 10.
BlackBerry features not fully secure
Another feature ‘retract’ as the name itself suggests makes it possible for a sender to retract the messages they have sent. The feature is in the ‘Beta’ stage for now. Removing a message is simple, the sender simply needs to press and hold the message and it disappears forever. Retraction works for written messages only and not for the photographs. The sender cannot retract the messages sent to groups and can use this feature in one-to-one chat only.
WeChat had already introduced this feature in June, and BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s BBM is the one to follow. The feature comes handy at times, as sometimes the messages are sent wrongly to some person other than the one intended to. The users might share some sensitive information like log-in IDs and passwords, and hence this feature will help them greatly by removing it from the chat history of the sender, as well as the recipient of the message.
These new features for privacy and control are not fool-proof as the recipient can easily take a screenshot or photograph of the message. Also, before the retractions and time deletions take place the messages can be copied.
