Julie let us know that RIM has offered up BlackBerry Messenger beta 5.0.1.17 to all the members of the BlackBerry Beta Zone. I had a few people confirm it and it looks like it is open to all users eligible for the Beta Zone which usually just requires you to be in supported countries. If you are not already part of the Beta Zone you can sign up at www.blackberry.com/beta or if you are already signed up just head to this link.
I think the most interesting part of the BlackBerry Messenger beta program is the features suggested by users that you can see below. Personally I think if RIM implemented half of them they would have a sweet instant messaging platform.
- Proximity Sensor
- Alert when a contact returns to the conversation
- Auto idle
- Share your BlackBerry Messenger status with Twitter
- More emoticons
- Customizable emoticons
- Increase the file transfer size
- Ability to change the size of display pictures
- Show display picture when inviting a contact
- Option to hide display pictures
- Option to turn off broadcast messages
- Ability to choose a background color for each contact
- A BlackBerry Messenger setup wizard to customize notifications, images, save to SD, etc.
- Integration with other IM clients
- A desktop version of BlackBerry Messenger
This new version 5.0.1.17 has the following fixed issues:
Chats
- If you have BlackBerry® Device Software 4.7.1 or lower on your BlackBerry device, you could not use the spelling checker in a chat.
- If a file transfer request expired, you could not receive new files.
- File transfer requests expired after a short amount of time.
- You might not have been able to send voice notes.
- You could not preview a picture before saving it to your device.
- The file transfer speed has been improved.
- In the Camera application, if you took a picture and tried to send it to a contact, the file transfer in BlackBerry® Messenger did not complete and the contact did not receive the picture.
- Temporary files that were associated with pictures that you sent or received were not automatically deleted when you ended a chat.
- A picture that you received might have appeared as a white square and you could not receive a higher quality version of the picture.
- If you viewed a picture that you received and tried to forward it to a contact from the menu, the contact did not receive the picture.
- If you saved a picture that you received from a contact to your device and clicked the thumbnail in the chat, the picture did not display.
- If you have BlackBerry® Device Software 4.7.1 or lower on your BlackBerry® device, you could not use the spelling checker in a chat.
General
- If you changed your status to Busy, contacts might have continued to see your status as Available.
- Display pictures might not have appeared.
- After changing the contact list style from 2 lines to 1 line, the recent updates list might have looked scrambled.
- If you removed your BlackBerry® device from the holster after receiving a new BlackBerry® Messenger message, the message did not automatically display.
- After you add a new contact, the activity updates list indicated that the contact’s display picture and display name have changed.
Groups
- In group chats, some emoticons might appear to be cut off in messages.
- If you tried to join a group by scanning a group barcode, and if 30 people had already scanned the barcode, you received a "This invitation has expired or has already been used by someone else" error message and could not join the group.
- If you took a picture with your device in the portrait view and shared it with a group, the shared picture might have appeared in the landscape view instead, or vice versa.
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