Apparently, the iOS release of BlackBerry Messenger is jammed in the Apple pipeline for several weeks, according to Alex Kinsella, a BlackBerry public relations manager.

This release is incredibly important for BlackBerry, since they are in the process of shopping the company, and possibly selling this product line off (see BlackBerry could still be made into a software company).

Simplenote, the multiplatform text editor and sync platform, is now available for Android.

Microsoft has released a pre-release version of Windows 8.1 (is there an echo in here?), with a pre-release version of the fully built-in version of Skype. This version will provide a deeper integration with SkyDrive and Internet Explorer, for example sharing photos from SkyDrive during a Skype call. Skype is also part of the start screen on Windows 8.1 (see Skype is moving to Windows 8.1 start screen).