BlackBerry phones may additionally finally disappear for first rate August 31

Edward C. Baig us of a today

published 6:44 PM EST Feb three, 2020

The as soon as-venerable BlackBerry smartphone has persisted a long gradual death march. The remaining nail in the coffin may additionally were hammered in on Monday with the information that China's TCL communication will no longer sell BlackBerry-branded cell devices as of Aug. 31, 2020. 

TCL said in a statement posted on Twitter that it "has no extra rights to design, manufacture or sell any new BlackBerry mobile instruments," though the enterprise indicated it will continue to supply customer and assurance aid for the current BlackBerry portfolio until Aug. 22, 2022.

purchasers can find aid cell numbers on the BlackBerryMobile web site, TCL noted.

It become just over three years in the past when TCL entered into a licensing contract with BlackBerry, the Waterloo, Canada, enterprise once referred to as analysis In action, which had ceased making BlackBerry hardware. 

BlackBerry telephones fell prey to the launch of the iPhone in 2007, in addition to premium Android telephones from Samsung and others.

As recently as June 2018, TCL attempted to hold the hardly respiratory company alive with the launch of the BlackBerry Key2, an Android handset that attempted to leverage common BlackBerry strengths, including a actual Qwerty-vogue mobile keyboard, powerful protection and long battery life. The hopeful nostalgia-pushed advertising phrase: "An icon reborn."

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although their numbers had diminished, most of the loyalists who caught with BlackBerry noted the physical keyboard as a prime motive.

in a single kind or an extra, BlackBerry has been on the comeback trail for several years now, and while the market for BlackBerry wasn't precisely thriving, there turned into some hope around the undeniable fact that there even was a Key2 launch, on exact of the KeyOne model that become introduced some sixteen months previous. That hope changed into by no means realized.

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In can also 2019, another remnant of BlackBerry's heyday disappeared when the customer version of BlackBerry Messenger or BBM changed into shuttered for first rate. via then, BBM became under the auspices of inventive Media Works, a division of an Indonesian media and tech business.

Absent every other unexpected rescue effort, it appears BlackBerry telephones could be gone for respectable.

email: ebaig@usatoday.com; observe @edbaig on Twitter