BBM makes Voice on its app (Pun intended)

Voice and Chat apps are the new trend. With apps like Viber and WeChat growing their facilities BBM decided to not saty back. Along with the launch of Blackberry Q5 smartphone in India, BlackBerry has also announced the availability of Blackberry Messenger Voice (BBM Voice) for all BlackBerry smartphone users. The users of BlackBerry smartphones with Blackberry OS 5 and above will now be able to use BBM Voice for free. BBM Voice is the voice-enabled chat messenger, which essentially allows a user to talk or send voice messages to any of his or her BBM contacts over WiFi . With an intent to reiterate its commitment to devices running older versions of its operating system, BlackBerry announced that the update to its BlackBerry Messenger app, BBM 7 that adds BBM Voice is now available for devices running OS 5.0, OS 6.0 and OS 7.0. BlackBerry had launched BBM Voice on BlackBerry OS 6.0 and later devices in December 2012 and had promised that it would update BBM for BlackBerry OS 5 customers, in early 2013 bringing the Voice functionality. Some of the other features that have been added to BBM 7 are multi-tasking with split screen. With this new feature, users can check BBM text chats, emails or even navigate other apps while being on a call. Another feature added with the new BBM 7 is that BBM users can check when a contact is available for a voice chat. The new version also adds BlackBerry ID Integration which is optional and simplifies OS and device upgrades. A BlackBerry ID is required for BBM Voice and this can be set up when upgrading the app. The data will also be carried over when a user moves to BlackBerry 10.The updated version of BBM 7 can be downloaded from BlackBerry World. With the update, BlackBerry wants to give users of its existing budget devices a reason to stay with the brand. This announcement is a good move by Blackberry for users who are still using older generation Blackberry smartphone and also for the sales of Blackberry smartphones based on OS 7. BBM Voice currently will only work over a WiFi network and doesn't support mobile data connections. If you have a BlackBerry device with OS 5.0 and above, you can upgrade your BBM to version 7.0.1.23 from the App World to use the Voice feature.