Apple’s iMessage service is pretty terrific, but it has one big limitation, and that is that it’s only available on Macs and iOS devices. At least officially. But there is an unofficial app that brings iMessage to your Android-powered smartphone. It works just as advertised, but we strongly advise you not to use it.

BBM’s cross-platform launch failed miserably this weekend. The app made its way to the iPhone in a small few countries, but the rollout was halted before it could reach the United States — or Google Play.

BlackBerry’s excuse for the catastrophic failure was that a leaked BBM APK for Android was causing some server troubles, and now the Canadian company has told fans that it will “take some time” to fix the problem, and that we should not expect to see the app this week.

This is your Android phone on iOS 7. Any questions?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Apple has tested this assumption in court against Samsung and other mobile device manufacturers, Android users and developers might have a different opinion.

Because, as you can see from the screenshot above, a whole bunch of apps have appeared in the Google Play store with the express purpose of making your Android handset look just like…well, an iPhone running iOS 7.

Of course, the argument could be made that only Android is open enough to actually allow its users to change the look and feel of their devices to a competing system’s visual system, but the result is still clear: Android developers, at least, think that you should be able to have a mobile phone that looks like the latest iOS devices on the screen as well as in the design of the handset itself.

There are lock screen apps for Android that mimic the parallax of the new iOS 7, apps that call themselves iOS 7 wallpaper, when they really aren’t, and apps that are just plain honest, titled iOS 7 Fake iPhone.

Hit some of those links above to try these out on your own, because we all know it’d be cool to have an Android phone that looks like an iPhone running iOS 7.

Right?

Discuss.

The iPhone 5s might be the closest any smartphone’s ever come to perfection, but none of its shiny glass, metal and chamfered surfaces really matter if they can stand up to some daily wear and tear. To see which new smartphone is the most durable, the gadget insurance company SquareTrade pitted the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c against the Moto X and Samsung Galaxy S4, in a series of damage tests, including getting dunked in water.

In the end, Moto X came out on top, with the iPhone 5s coming in a close second. The Galaxy S4 on the other hand didn’t fair too well, and was dominated by everyone, including the cheaper the iPhone 5c.

Watch the full results below:

BlackBerry is a great company with great products and great ideas. But BlackBerry is failing hard. And the reason is that BlackBerry’s model is obsolete.

Don’t look now, but it’s 2013. If your handset isn’t running iOS or Android, you will not succeed in the consumer smartphone market.

And succeeding is exactly what isn’t happening at BlackBerry. The company recently announced a quarterly loss of about $1 billion. They announced that 40% of BlackBerry employees will be laid off. They’ve put the company up for sale. They’re selling their jet.

It’s over, basically. But it doesn’t have to be.

What BlackBerry really needs is to become an Android-handset maker.