BlackBerry devices, which were the first to incorporate a full hardware keyboard before the smartphone era, will stop operating as of January 4, 2022 and their owners will not be able to make calls or send messages.
The move is not really surprising as the Canadian company has already made many changes in an attempt to remain relevant in the market, and despite its very late response it did launch devices based on the Android system and also sold the brand rights to TCL which launched several devices. In practice, however, these measures did not help her and the few devices that were launched were not considered a success at all.
According to the details on the support site, BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry OS 10 and below will not be able to make calls and messages or dial emergency numbers. While users will be able to continue running other basic functions on the device, even then most BlackBerry services will work partially or not at all. This includes access to the app store and the built-in messaging system (BBM), some of which had already stopped operating back in 2019.
There were also reports last year of the brand returning to the market and instead TCL will be replaced by another company, OnwardMobility by name, which acquired the rights from the parent company. It originally planned to launch a new BlackBerry device during the first half of 2021, but nothing has been said since. The company’s logo still bears the Blackberry logo and it is not clear for how long.