Kik Ousts BBM as Mayor of Free Texting Apps
By: Hillel Fuld
When one analyzes an industry that moves as fast as the mobile industry, one of the interesting things to watch is how new trends rise and fall almost daily. The app space is seeing some patterns and trends in the kind of apps that are hitting the various app stores. Some of the latest trends include photo sharing apps like Instagram, PicPlz, and the latest, Path. Another trend we are seeing is BBM replacement apps.
Let’s back up a little. When I replaced my BlackBerry with an iPhone, one of the things I missed most was BBM. In fact, almost all Apple converts complain about the lack of a free short messaging platform to communicate with other smartphone users. BBM, as an app that is preinstalled on BlackBerrys and always on, is practically flawless. Real time communication, file transfer, simple and intuitive UI, and status updates of the message that was sent (Received, Read, etc.) are just a few features found in BBM.
If there is one downside to the wildly popular BBM messaging platform, it is that it is exclusive to BlackBerry owners, so it leaves no room for communicating with iPhone or Android users. Enter cross platform messaging apps. As the title of the post states, there are quite a few of these solutions, but I believe one of them stands out from the crowd.
The first app on the scene, and based on hunch, I believe still the most popular one, is Whatsapp. Whatsapp is an iPhone app also available for Android, BlackBerry and Nokia (Nokia?) phones. The app includes file transfer of audio, photo, and even video files, a nice addition. Whatsapp works based on phone numbers and not PINs like BBM, something that some will like and others will hate (international codes can be a pain). The app also includes push notifications so you know as soon as someone contacts you on Whatsapp. There are many more features to Whatsapp and all in all, it is a great solution.
There are other apps that provide this functionality as well, such as Pingchat (Android devices too), TextMe, and others. The newest addition to the group, and the app I personally like the best, is Kik. Kik is new and so it does lack a few of the bells and whistles such as file sharing, but what I like about Kik, and what I believe is the main cause of the app going viral, is (can you guess?) its simplicity.
Kik has a beautiful UI that makes the app pleasant to use. It is designed to perfection and it is fast, really fast. It has the real time tracking we all loved in BBM, which lets you know when someone reads your message and the developers promise to add features such as file sharing to make the app the central utility for sharing music, photos, and video.
The best part about Kik is that it is completely free and to be honest, had it not been, I would probably still be using it, so that says a lot.
Kik is making major waves on the Web with every tech outlet talking about it and based on my personal experience, it is getting some nice user traction as well.
The bottom line is, I am sure there will be more apps like Whatsapp and Kik, but for now, despite the fact that contrary to BBM, both sides need to install the app, these twp apps are the best of the pack. However, Kik takes the gold metal for providing the closest experience to BBM and making me miss my BlackBerry that much less. If we are comparing it to BBM, despite its disadvantages, Kik works on BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android, so take that, BBM!
Have you tried any of these apps? Perhaps one I did not mention? Please let us know what you think of this trend. Either leave your thoughts in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.
Update: Apparently, Kik was making RIM sweat and so RIM removed the app from the BlackBerry App World… So much for free market and fair competition. Not nice RIM, very Apple-like of you. Thanks Aryeh for pointing this out to me.
