BlackBerry’s 5G resurrection has been canceled

approach returned in 2009, some random Wired contributor set the comments part on hearth once they reluctantly declared the iPhone a far better cell over the BlackBerry.

Yet, it was a tad prophetic in that the iPhone has outlasted BlackBerry gadgets. at the moment, with the iPhone in its infancy and the BlackBerry a bold force in the cell phone market, it gave the look of BlackBerry can be appropriate there a decade later with Android and iPhone contraptions.

unluckily, it changed into no longer to be. instead, BlackBerry is as soon as once more being hauled off to the slicing block.

in the third quarter of 2020, the company transferred the BlackBerry branding from telephone brand TCL, which had released the BlackBerry KEYone in 2017 and the KEY2 in 2018, to Texas startup OnwardMobility.

It announced that it could be releasing a 5G-in a position BlackBerry-branded cell with a physical keyboard someday in 2021. neatly, 2021 got here and went, and still no BlackBerry cellphone.

past this month, OnwardMobility announced that it wouldn't be completing the BlackBerry cellphone assignment.

whatever sliver of hope BlackBerry enthusiasts are keeping onto for a brand new telephone could be dashed by way of a press release on the company's web page announcing a complete shut down of operations.

picture: KnowTechie (by way of OnwardMobility)

We really should have seen this coming. BlackBerry has been struggling for over a decade, every new iPhone a nail in the coffin. final yr BlackBerry OS rendered useless any gadget operating it, because it become retired into the sunset.

BlackBerry is now a utility company; it was effectively a depend of time earlier than the hardware line grew to be a factor of the past, notwithstanding in name simplest.

Tack on a worldwide chip scarcity along with BlackBerry offloading its cellular telephone patents for a cool $600 million, and something hope remained for a new BlackBerry mobilephone now stomped into the filth.

That's acquired to be it for BlackBerry regarding mobile phones, appropriate? There can't be a further tech company available inclined to take a chance on a cellphone branding with restrained market attraction, correct?

image: KnowTechie

smartly, with these patents in the arms of a personal consortium of businesses and the BlackBerry name up for grabs, the rest is viable.

figuring out real BlackBerry hardcore enthusiasts, that probability mixed with nostalgia for the physical keyboard and belt clips will retain this brand alive. as a minimum in reminiscence.

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