BlackBerry's Troubles Continue With Delay of BlackBerry Messenger Apps

Sept. 23, 2013 — -- It seems BlackBerry can't catch a break.

On the heels of the news that the company would be laying off 40 percent of its workforce or up to 4,500 employees and face a billion dollar quarterly loss, it also missed the release of its BlackBerry Messenger or BBM app for the iPhone and Android phones this weekend.

BlackBerry had set the release date for this past Saturday, Sept. 21, but leaked versions of the app caused technical difficulties with the launch.

"Consequently, this unreleased version caused issues, which we have attempted to address throughout the day," BlackBerry's Luke Reimer posted on Saturday. "We are pausing the global roll-out of BBM for Android and iPhone."

Reimer added that when all was fixed it would begin a "staggered country roll-out" of BBM for Android and continue the release of BBM for iPhone. As of Monday morning, BBM for the iPhone and Android still had not been released. A BlackBerry spokesperson said the company would share more soon. According to the BBM Twitter account, the company's "Teams are working non-stop."

The good news for BlackBerry is that the company accrued 1.1 million users in the first eight hours of the leaked Android app. The company's messenger app has long been one of the most popular features of its phones, but as it has lost significant steam to Android and the iPhone, it decided to bring the app to other platforms. Like competing options, including Kik or WhatsApp, it allows users to message their friends on other types of phones without using up text messages.