Author: Lucy

The BlackBerry Messenger application has now passed this vital milestone since its launch in 2013.

It has been a year and a half since the BBM mobile app first became available on the Google Play store so that it could be used by Android device owners, and now it has broken past a very important milestone, having reached 100 million downloads.

The BBM stickers have also been making some important progress, as they have been sent over one billion times.

Users on Android devices are hooked on the mobile app stickers from BBM, as they have sent them over one billion times in a period of a year and a half. This, and the increase in the downloads of the messenger app has, according to BlackBerry, helped to illustrate the “tremendous momentum” of their instant messaging service. That said, it is important to point out that the number of active users and the number of people who downloaded the service are not exactly the same thing.

The comments from BlackBerry about the popularity of the mobile app shows a considerable and ongoing confidence.

The company has revealed that it strongly believes that its own efforts will continue to help it to push its mobile messenger app figures higher and it will work to take advantage of this considerable momentum.

Comparatively, when looking at other messenger application brands, such as ChatON from Samsung, that service has also broken the 100 million download mark at Android, but at the same time, it is not even being seen as valuable enough to be worthy of continuing onward. Samsung will be shutting down that service before the end of this year.

Equally, WhatsApp currently has 700 million active monthly users – not just downloads – and they exchange an average daily 30 billion messages. That represents a usage that is 50 percent greater than the international SMS message market.

Therefore, while the progress being made by the BBM mobile app should not be ignored, it is the growth that is important, not the actual milestone, so far, as it will have a long way to go before it can be considered a complete turnaround in this area, as well.

The announcement of these new mobile devices was made in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

HTC has now announced that it will be releasing a new version of its HTC One flagship smartphone, in addition to revealing that it will be entering into two brand new categories, which are wearable technology and virtual reality.

The company had been rumored to be developing wearables for the past few years, and now the news is official.

The first wearable technology from HTC will be wrist worn. It is meant to be a fitness tracker that is geared specifically toward serious athletes and not necessarily the average person with a lifestyle that is only slightly more active than being sedentary. These wearables will be called the HTC Grip, and it will be possible to sync them with both Android based smartphones and iOS devices.

The HTC Grip took more time to bring the company into wearable technology than had been anticipated.

The reason, according to officials from the company, was that it did not feel that it had adequate in-house expertise for creating the software, infrastructure, and app for health and fitness wearables. Therefore, it partnered up with Under Armour in January, in order to be able to come up with a line of gadgets that would function with the UA Record fitness mobile app from that company.

While the Grip is the first piece of wearable tech that is being launched by the company, it was also made clear that this would not be the last. It is going to become available to consumers this spring, and it will have a price tag of $199. It will contain a GPS tracker, which is unlike most other fitness tracker devices, but it will make it an appealing option for cyclists and runners who would prefer not to have to bring their smartphones with them when they work out.

This wearable technology is also water resistant, so that it can withstand rain and sweat (and even showering), though the company does not recommend that it be worn while going swimming, when it would actually be submerged in water.