Back in September of this year, BlackBerry rolled out BlackBerry 10.3.2.2876 OS update and have today released a Hot Fix Update with the same build number.
Confused? The hot fix brings the following:
- Calendar update
- Removal of BBM Meetings app
- Patches to the Android Player
Now, it is completely unusual for a company to release an update that includes patches and/or updates and not change the build number. However, this is BlackBerry, and when it comes to BlackBerry 10, things are a bit of a mess. This “hot fix” continues that trend, and I would heartily recommend that users hold off from actually updating at the moment.
There is a well known issue in the Android runtime (ART) where Android apps cannot be properly deleted. While this issue appears to still exist in this build, we have absolutely no idea what the patches to the Android player include. Dependant, on how many Android apps that you use on your BlackBerry 10 device, this can lead to many problems with the OS.
In this update BlackBerry have removed the BBM Meetings app, which initially makes sense considering that BBM Meetings is being discontinued on February 10.  However, this leads to BlackBerry users who still have an active subscription being unable to access BBM Meetings between now and February 10.
Removing this app also highlights where BlackBerry just don’t seem to put in any thought into app changes. For instance, BBM still contains the link to select a meeting from within a group chat.  However, if you try it, out of habit, due to the fact that the BBM Meetings app doesn’t exist on the phone, it minimizes the BBM app and then just hangs there.
Hopefully, we will see a quick update to BBM for BlackBerry 10 which will remove any references to BBM Meetings.
Very rarely would I that recommend that anybody holds off on updating an official OS but there is a possibility that BlackBerry will realise that the same build number, the unstable ART and the BBM Meetings situation is leaving rather a mess and issue another quick fix update.
