There may never be a native Instagram app for BlackBerry 10
If the sources close to Instagram are to be believed, there may never be a native app for BlackBerry 10. Apparently, there is some work happening, attempting to port the Android version.
It is still too early to judge the sales of the BlackBerry 10 phones, considering it has not even been released everywhere, including India. However, as it has often been said, the app ecosystem needs to be in proper shape, before any smartphone OS can hope to get gains in the market. After a lot of initial excitement, things now seem to be falling flat for BlackBerry. Sources close to the popular photo sharing network, Instagram, have reportedly told AllThingsD that there may never be a native version of the app for BlackBerry 10.
What the sources also say is that there is work happening on a ported version of the app, the Android version to be specific, but that would not really be available anytime soon. There are considerable hurdles in that. BlackBerry has to first finalize the port version, and then take the approval from Facebook, which owns Instagram. Anything less than perfect, and Facebook is not likely to approve. At the moment, the process seems to be struggling with some technical issues, and the struggle for solutions continues.
AllThingsD contacted BlackBerry regarding the issue, and the statement from the company was rather diplomatic. “We have a strong partnership and are actively engaged around Instagram support for BB10,” said Martyn Mallick, BlackBerry’s VP Global Alliances, “but we do not have an availability date at this point.” Facebook, on its part, did not comment.
This is a considerable setback for BlackBerry, particularly after CEO Thorsten Heins had sounded fairly bullish that the BB10 platform will not be far behind Android and iOS in terms of variety of apps, including the popular ones on those platforms. At the moment, widely used apps like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Skype and Amazon Kindle are not available on BlackBerry World, despite having been shown off prior to launch.
Source: All Things D