There are a number of ways that mobile users can communicate with friends or family and over the last few months many may have decided to use the BlackBerry Messenger service since it was made available for other platforms. Now a BBM update for Android and iOS brings the welcomed promised features that make the service even better.

Back at the beginning January some new features became available via the beta version of the Android app, but now both the Android and iOS BBM apps have been updated to provide users the option of making voice calls from within the app.

This can be done whether connected to a Wi-Fi network or via a data connection with your network with BBM Voice. The company is pushing the new service as useful as users won’t be charged for international calls.

If one of your contacts is available for a BBM Voice call you will see a green icon on the top right hand corner of your chat, and to make a Voice call you simply touch this icon and you will be connected.

There is also the new BBM Channels feature which is a group chat function that allows users to talk to other BBM users about topics that are of an interest, which will be focussed on certain topics such as products, hobbies, entertainment, and more.

Another new feature is location sharing where users can set how long they share their location with another user, once this set time has been reached your location will go private again. The company has been busy adding new features since the app was originally released last year, and on the Android platform in the coming months devices running Android Gingerbread will also have access to the service.

Are you pleased about these new BBM features?

Source: BlackBerry.