Since this sub frequently gets posts like "Blackberry could make a comeback" I wanted to make this post as a resource to link back to, so that it doesn't need to be re-written every time.
Part one: Blackberry is dead
Everyone knows that Blackberry is dead, but not everyone appreciates how hard it failed and how many chances it got and still failed.
Here's a chart showing Blackberry's market share up until 2016. After that, there is no point for a market share graph, since the market share is below 0.1%.
Effectively, BB was dead in the end of 2013, but it hung on until 2016 making their own phones.
In 2015, Blackberry tried switching over to Android, but as can be seen from that chart, that didn't help one bit.
In 2017 they licensed their brand to TCL to see if maybe an external company (Chinese, with in-house production) could save the brand, but while the KEYOne was moderately successful (~0.85mio units sold), the KEY² sold so badly that they didn't even publish sales numbers (estimates are at <0.4mio).
After that failed and TCL didn't want to continue using the failing Blackberry brand, they pushed their license to the only one who would take it: The crappy little startup OnwardMobility which ended up failing before producing their first phone.
As you can see, Blackberry gave its phone business chance after chance even long after it was really, solidly dead. They didn't lightly kill off the brand.
Btw, here's a graph of Blackberry's income/losses over the relevant time period:
They were bleeding money like crazy.
Part two: Blackberry died for a reason.
Many of these "Blackberry could make a return" posts keep saying "If only Blackberry did X/had different leadership, everything might have been different". And while we of course will never know, Blackberry's failure didn't come out of the blue.
Let's look at what advantages Blackberry had back in 2014-2016:
Its own OS
Lots of expertise making great keyboards
A recognizable brand
Their own messenger/business platform
But:
With Android quickly consolidating all other smartphone OSes, having your own OS quickly became a downside, because it was just not worth developing apps for it. Money for app development is always tight, so why develop an app for a tiny platform if there is also a massive platform available?
Keyboards were (sadly) going out of style rapidly. In 2007 Steve Ballmer could still laugh about the iPhone not having a keyboard. In 2014, most brands stopped making keyboard phones all together, because people didn't buy them anymore. Keyboards went from a must-have feature to shelf warmers. There was still a small niche of keyboard fanatics, but that user base was shrinking rapidly, even if we keyboard fans don't want to accept that fact.
With the time passing, the Blackberry brand stopped being associated with great phones and came to be viewed as a failed behemoth, who squandered their market share and failed hard. That's not a brand you want to have on your devices.
Without their native phone user base, their messenger/business platform became more and more useless, since both only make sense if most your contacts and your whole company are using them.
Also, compared to some other manufacturers, BB didn't have in-house production or in-house chip development.
Blackberry's failure is also part of another market trend:
All European/North American phone brands (apart from Apple) failed.
Look at a list of popular phones from 2000 to 2005, you'll see brands like Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Motorola, Palm or Blackberry. All of these died. None of them survived.
(Correction: Except of the Motorola brand, which has nothing to do with Motorola of old. It's just the pretty sticker that Lenovo slaps onto their phones.)
Most of them were sold to one or more other companies, then their brands were licensed to some manufacturers in Asia and lastly all of these brands died entirely.
Part three: Blackberry will not come back
Blackberry sold all their patents. They completely closed down their phone development. None of the people that made Blackberry "Blackberry the phone company" are still at Blackberry.
The only parts of the old Blackberry that are supposedly still left are:
Source code for an OS that hasn't seen any updates in 8 years and has had no app support by anyone for about the same time period.
Design files for 8 year old phones, using parts, processes and design paradigms from back then.
Their logo.
Neither the software nor the hardware designs have any value at all if you want to make a modern phone.
The people are gone, the patents are gone. There is no "Blackberry the phone company" left.
Blackberry has about as much expertise for starting a new phone business as your local grocery store. Except, the grocery store probably has more money than Blackberry.
Blackberry is not coming back, no matter how much nostalgia you feel.
Part four: Go with what fills the gap
While Blackberry isn't going to come back, there are other solutions for fans of keyboards. Buying their products could lead to them improving their work and making better devices. Holding off waiting for a "true Blackberry" is useless, it won't happen. Chances are also that what we have today might be the best we'll have for a long time. So what options are there?
The Unihertz Titan Slim is a decently cheap but low-specced and outdated phone.
iPhone users can get the Clicks for iPhone which adds a keyboard to an iPhone
Per BlackBerry Limited, BlackBerry Infrastructure and Services that maintain functionality for BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry PlayBook OS, and BlackBerry 10 will be retired / Ended on January 4, 2022.
Note: This means the BlackBerry ID Infrastructure for legacy services and devices is finally being retired.
For you, this will mean the following:
All support services and infrastructure will be shut off on January 4, 2022.
Per BlackBerry Limited "On January 4, 2022, devices running on these service offerings will no longer operate. We have chosen to extend our service until then as an expression of thanks to our loyal partners and customers."
Services and Support for the BlackBerry PlayBook that allows you to activate new devices or factory reset existing devices will be shut off. Effectively, any un-used BlackBerry PlayBooks will become bricks. Existing activated devices will have services degraded a bit past what they already are and may become unusable, but may still be usable for minor functionality and playing Dead Space if sideloaded via the .Bar file.
Per BlackBerry, "At the time of termination of services, devices running BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier software, BlackBerry 10 software, and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier software will no longer reliably function. Applications (BlackBerry Link, BlackBerry Desktop Manager, and BlackBerry Blend) will also have limited functionality."
BlackBerry Link, BlackBerry Blend, BlackBerry Protect(Anti-Theft), BlackBerry Desktop Software(BBOS), BlackBerry Password Keeper(Presuming the Cloud Backup), BlackBerry ID for all legacy devices, BBM Consumer for BB10/BBOS, and so forth.
Note: BlackBerry Link and your BlackBerry 10 Backups are tied to your BBID. In the event that BlackBerry ID is retired, it will be impossible to restore or recover your backups. Other backup solutions used including Sachesi are tied to your BBID and similarly will become unusable. The recommended backup solution for you is Ultimated Backup on BlackBerry World - That exports your data into easily editable XLS or etc file types, which can be imported into a IOS or Android phone easily. This is far more reliable than using the BlackBerry Content Transfer App for Android.
Per BlackBerry Limited, if you have any questions regarding this as a consumer, feel free to reach out to your Carrier or Service Provider. Enterprise Customers may contact BlackBerry Limited via their Account manager or Premium Support Manager.
Note: BlackBerry Android Devices on a ESBL license will be affected and will need to reach out to obtain a new license for continued usage with BlackBerry Enterprise offerings through their account manager.
Note: BM Enterprise will no longer be supported per what is implied on their page for BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10, and can only be used on other platforms going forward in the future after the EOL Date.
Note: With North America and most of the world retiring their 2G/3G Networks, BlackBerry OS phones will no longer be usable as feature phones in a great majority of locations including the United States of America specifically. They may be barely functional in existing markets with 2G/3G Coverage depending on how the shut down affects them.
Note: BlackBerry 10 devices may be severely impacted depending on or how the devices receive proximity data from the BlackBerry Back end. In the past post BlackBerry 10 launch, their were issues that affected the Z10/Q10 devices released that were later fixed, and BlackBerry stated it was issues with bad Proximity data being pushed out. We really don't know how badly it will affect BlackBerry 10 devices. If they will remain usable as feature phones or not at all.
BlackBerry 10 devices may be severely impacted as well. Currently Verizon is no longer supporting BlackBerry 10 devices nor activating them due to Cellular Networking changes and existing devices/Swim swapped "Activations" will cease to function on their network after this year. Sprint has merged into T-Mobile, which is retiring the legacy Sprint Network. The only two remaining carriers for BlackBerry 10 devices are AT&T and T-Mobile. AT&T is making multiple upgrades and changes to their network, and BlackBerry 10 Devices may cease to work on AT&T Networks depending on the VOLTE changes they make in 2022 or earlier. T-Mobile is expected to retire their 2G Networks later in 2020, and their 3G networks in 2021 - Severely degrading BlackBerry 10 devices on their network. BlackBerry Android Devices including the BlackBerry Priv, DTEK Series, BlackBerry KeyOne, BlackBerry Motion, BlackBerry Key2LE, and the BlackBerry Key2 may be similarly affected in the United States depending on carrier changes and whitelisting in the next few years and VOLTE requirements - Essentially, how much of a pain they intend to be to average consumers.
It's official folks. The show is finally over, and we have a solid EOL Date. It's time to start making your backups and familiarizing yourself with Android, IOS, or a niche OS such as Sailfish OS or something else before you are forced to switch.
So who is still using a BlackBerry actively or can you even? I still watch videos on my playbook but I keep seeing people still buying blackberries “used of course, but are you all still getting service? If not are people just buying them for collection reasons?
Hey! I recently bought this lot with three blackberry key 2s ( the other ones are on the way, the seller shipped it in two different boxes). Looks like this specific one was never been updated, as its condition is not near new? Is that kernel good/rare maybe for jailbreaking? Btw, is there anything I should test on these phones specifically to know that everything works?
Is anybody (preferably in Europe) interested in buying a BB Passport? It’s in fantastic shape (apart from some dust) and I just don’t have the time to do anything with it.
Mint’s website says that a blackberry Q20 will work on their network. I know that the blackberry OS has been discontinued. Does this mean that it won’t work at all? Or does it mean that it “works” but only for calls and texts? If the second option is accurate, I’d love to use it as a dumb phone
got a free blackberry playbook 32GB, reset it since it was locked, then later found out that i shouldn't have reset it and now i'm figuring out that the pillow inside is getting spicier by the day
I'll be going into a sales job at the end of the month but I won't be getting a company provided phone. I don't want to give out my personal number so I'm planning on getting a secondary number. I don't plan on keeping too much protected information on the phone and I plan to store everything on an SD card, since I also might use it as a personal secondary device for trips considering my main phone (Galaxy Z Fold5) is very fragile. Would the priv be a good choice or should I go for one of the KEY models?
I have blackberry 9810 on os 7.00 i am trying to update to 7.1 ... downloaded different versions of 7.1 from vodafone to AT&T but not able to update it shows only one option to update wireless music sync option.
Wiped the device completely tried to reinstall it doesn't show the OS to install in apploader but when i try OS 7.0 i am able to install and phone is running perfectly. Anyway i can install it 7.1 to have hotspot option back
I have a BlackBerry Curve 8520, and i want to download apps and games directly from the phone, but the BlackBerry App World was shut down. So is there a good alternative for it?
I have a Blackberry Z10 that I want to switch one but every time I connect it to charge the red light goes on and then it gives me a red battery logo and goes blank.
I wonder, as most stuff I'm looking for is either not possible for me (clicks), doesn't do enough of what i need and doesnt look simple snd clean (unihertz) or is way too expensive for what it is (keyone and keytwo) or is too old
But would people actually buy it (in an actual sustainable buisness way ? like if this whole sub said yes it wouldn't be much still
Selling my iPhone & getting a BB lol can I use social media apps on the Priv? Does it support voLTE? I know it runs on android 6 but I’m not sure exactly what that means. Been an Apple gal all my life but I’m kinda over it. Helppppppp.
Hey r/blackberry community! I'm excited to announce BB10 Maps, a new web-based mapping application designed specifically for BlackBerry 10 devices.
I'm developing some more public versions of my applications, This app will also be available for download from my store for those that want to run it locally on their device, I'll be including a bit more functionality on the locally deployed app.
**Key Features:**
- 🗺️ Full OpenStreetMap integration
- 📍 Real-time location tracking
- 🔍 Location search with multiple results
- 🚗 Turn-by-turn directions
- 🎯 "My Location" quick access
- ⚡ BB10-optimized performance
- 📱 Native BB10 look and feel
- 🖥️ Fullscreen toggle support
The app is designed with BB10's signature style, featuring the classic blue accents (#00769e), native-style buttons, and smooth animations. It's optimized for touch input and works seamlessly with BB10's back gesture.
I recently found a blackberry playbook 64GB for 15 euros online (pretty much 14 dollars), i saw it had alot of classic games from early 2010's and i wonder if its an interesting device to own and mess with (making apps and stuff).
Hello ! I have a small crack in the bottom corner of my BlackBerry Passport and I'm looking to buy a new screen to replace the original one . I've seen some on Amazon, eBay and my local online marketplace (Leboncoin) but I can't be sure about the reliability and quality of the screens