Blackberry will from Tuesday January 4th stop running support for its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This means all older Blackberry devices not running on Android software will no longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or make calls, even to 911.
While most mobile users have moved on from BlackBerry, the last version of its operating system launched in 2013. The company originally announced the news in September 2020 as part of its efforts to focus on providing security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world under the name BlackBerry Limited.
BlackBerry (BB) has been mostly out of the phone business since 2016, but over the years it continued to license its brand to phone manufacturers. This includes TCL and more recently OnwardMobility, a Texas-based security startup, for a 5G Blackberry device running on Android software.
At its peak in 2012, BlackBerry had more than 80 million active users. The company got its start in 1996 as Research In Motion with what it called two-way pagers. Its first gadget, the Inter@ctive Pager, allowed customers to respond to pages with a physical keyboard, a kind of text messaging/email hybrid. 3 years later, RIM introduced the BlackBerry name with the BlackBerry 850.
Eventually, BlackBerry phones gained support for email, apps, web browsing and BBM, an encrypted text messaging platform that predated WhatsApp. The brand eventually gave up on its own software, embracing Android and layering its security software on top. It found some success in enterprise security software and automotive software. Although TCL stopped making devices with the BlackBerry name in 2020, some fans are holding out for the arrival of OnwardMobility’s BlackBerry 5G device, which was originally expected to launch in 2021.