Blackberry’s services to be offline on January 4th

Blackberry is a classic that shouldn’t be forgot.

Blackberry has a tremendous history in the world of mobile technology. They were once loved for their fluid OS, amazing security, and overall amazing experience with the built-in QWERTY keyboard. Everything changed when Apple attacked and rectangular slabs with touch screens became the norm. Blackberry clearly isn’t the tech community’s preferred proof of choice when Apple came in with their iPhone. The company has quite underestimated them and continued doing what they’re doing and didn’t see Apple as a huge of a threat.

Their downfall only starts from there. Android came into the scene a few years later and Blackberry still didn’t adapt. Sure they had a touch screen phone but the feedback is so terrible and unresponsive that people lost their interest in the brand. Their OS called BlackberryOS also did not come with a friendly app store and lacked apps as the company was known for its tight and rigid security, they heavily focused on it at the cost of user convenience.

Fast forward twelve years later, Blackberry has announced that devices running Blackberry OS 7.1 and 10 would no longer function starting January 10th. By “no longer function” we REALLY mean no longer function. It’s basically a floating brick by then as you can’t do calls, chat messages and even emergency services are going to be down. January 4th also marks the end of the company’s ill-fated tablet, the PlayBook.

With the waning decline of Blackberry and their transition to Android as well as changing their ownership so many times (formerly it was TCL, the company is now looking for a new owner), it’s no surprise to see the company shutting down their ill-fated services. In 2019, the company has shut down BlackBerry Messenger as well as their app store so this is just the necessary second step.

Source: Engadget