BlackBerry users’ social world is getting smaller and smaller. After WhatsApp, now Facebook is abandoning the Canadian firm’s platform. Facebook, which last year passed the milestone of 1 billion users, has decided to remove support from BlackBerry’s mobile platform. Last month, WhatsApp announced to pull support for its messaging app by the end of 2016.
BlackBerry “extremely disappointed”
Last week in a blog post titled “Great Apps on BlackBerry!,” the Canadian firm showed optimism despite the growing darkness. In the same blog post, the Canadian firm confirmed the loss of support from Facebook. BlackBerry Senior Marketing Manager Lou Gazzola noted that the app landscape continues to evolve, and in ways that are not always within their control.
“We are extremely disappointed in their decision as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands (but let them know how you feel on social media, using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps),” Gazzola said.
BlackBerry has been losing users at a brisk pace in recent years. According to recent figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Android and Apple smartphone sales account for 58% and 39% in the U.S., respectively. Unfortunately, BlackBerry falls under the “other” category, which accounts for 0.1% of sales.
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Even with the decline in sales, one of the few good things for the Canadian smartphone maker is its existing user base of faithful customers. But now there are even fewer reasons for users to stay with the loss of support of the world’s most popular social media and messaging apps.
A decision expected sooner or later
Users hoping to get on using third-party apps will be upset as BlackBerry noted that Facebook had opted to “discontinue support of their essential APIs.” Developers rely on these APIs to create their own third-party apps.
On the BlackBerry World app store, Facebook and WhatsApp fall under the top five of the top 10 free apps, while the other three are from the Canadian company or third-party developers. When Facebook is planning to remove its support or if the process has already begun is still not certain as both BlackBerry-made Facebook apps are still available in the BlackBerry’s app store.
Facebook’s and WhatsApp’s decisions to abandon BlackBerry’s platform must not come as a surprise as the Canadian firm has placed the future of its struggling mobile business on the Android OS.
