BB's 'universal inbox' comes to Android

BlackBerry Hub+ takes the pain out of trying to keep on top of messages, alerts and updates from social and messaging apps but its features will come at a price.

Like its BBM messaging feature, one of the few genuinely great features sported by BlackBerry handsets and BlackBerry handsets alone, is the Hub+, which the company calls its inbox for everything. With a single swipe all updates, texts, emails and other alerts are all clearly grouped together alongside diary and calendar entries.

According to GlobalWebIndex, the average online adult has a minimum of six social media accounts. Trying to keep up with notifications from Facebook and Pinterest on top of work and private email, social messaging apps and Twitter feeds can mean some serious swiping back and forward.

Hub+ quite rightly won many plaudits when it launched on BlackBerry devices as part of the BB10 operating sustem and now, just as it did with BBM, BlackBerry is rolling out Hub+ as an app for Android handsets that run Marshmallow and meet certain hardware specifications.

However, there's a catch. Hub+, which is essentially an entire suite of apps that also includes a password manager for automatically generating difficult-to-crack, unique logins for all apps, will require a monthly subscription of 99 cents (or Dh3.50) after an initial 30-day trial period has expired.

Download Hub+ from the Google Play store here. BlackBerry says that it is also developing a version for the iPhone and will be looking at how it can make Hub compatible with Android handsets still stuck on the Lollipop operating system.

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