It's now one month since BlackBerry's ill-fated non-release of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app for Android and iOS.
The beleaguered mobile phone maker was all set to launch BBM on the Android and iOS platforms last month, before pulling the product at the last minute.
In fact, the app did reach Android users, but only briefly, and not with BlackBerry's blessing.
Ironically, even though BlackBerry enthused about "1.1 million active users in the first eight hours, without even launching the official Android app," it was also forced to admit the the unofficial release "caused issues" - issues so severe that the product still wasn't out when this article was written.
(BBM for Android and iOS finally appeared officially the same day this article went live.)
But the app, or numerous shabby imitations of it, are still popping up in the Play Store a full month later.
It's not surprising to see cybercrooks trying to take advantage of heavily-anticipated product releases, but in this case the official product remains very publicly unreleased, which you might hope would make Google quadruply suspicious of imposter apps.
The situation is calmer now than when I checked last week, when there were dozens of apps looking just like #4 above.
But even a few bogus apps are too many, given that all of the ones I've looked at with green logos seem to have identical imagery and the same drivellous description, starting like this
Blackberry Messenger Full Edition!!!
For All Android Devices and also it is FREE!!!
And this descirption is 100% BELEIVABLE, IS'NT IT?!?!?!?
(BBM for Android and iOS finally appeared officially the same day this article went live.)
READ MORE
The beleaguered mobile phone maker was all set to launch BBM on the Android and iOS platforms last month, before pulling the product at the last minute.
In fact, the app did reach Android users, but only briefly, and not with BlackBerry's blessing.
Ironically, even though BlackBerry enthused about "1.1 million active users in the first eight hours, without even launching the official Android app," it was also forced to admit the the unofficial release "caused issues" - issues so severe that the product still wasn't out when this article was written.
(BBM for Android and iOS finally appeared officially the same day this article went live.)
But the app, or numerous shabby imitations of it, are still popping up in the Play Store a full month later.
It's not surprising to see cybercrooks trying to take advantage of heavily-anticipated product releases, but in this case the official product remains very publicly unreleased, which you might hope would make Google quadruply suspicious of imposter apps.
The situation is calmer now than when I checked last week, when there were dozens of apps looking just like #4 above.
But even a few bogus apps are too many, given that all of the ones I've looked at with green logos seem to have identical imagery and the same drivellous description, starting like this
Blackberry Messenger Full Edition!!!
For All Android Devices and also it is FREE!!!
And this descirption is 100% BELEIVABLE, IS'NT IT?!?!?!?
(BBM for Android and iOS finally appeared officially the same day this article went live.)
READ MORE
