closing hope for new BlackBerry extinguished, physical keyboard and all

The last hope for a BlackBerry-branded phone has been extinguished, with OnwardMobility confirming the shutdown of its already-delayed plans to liberate a mobile with a actual keyboard.

In a statement on its website on Monday (by the use of Android primary), the business says plans for a 5G Blackberry mobilephone, designed to continue that fabled analysis In motion focus on protection, have now run aground. That formally ends hopes of the BlackBerry identify rejoining the most appropriate Android telephone ranks, probably forever.

The company referred to: "We are looking to thanks thinking about the gigantic amount of support that you've given us when you consider that we first launched OnwardMobility. although, it's with super sadness that we announce that OnwardMobility could be shutting down, and we can no longer be continuing with the development of an extremely-comfortable smartphone with a actual keyboard.

"Please be aware of that this become not a call that we made calmly or in haste. We share your disappointment in this information and assure you this is not the outcome we labored and hoped for," the Texas-based company brought.

OnwardMobility did not state why it has cancelled the product. youngsters, earlier reporting from Android Police noted the software-focused arm of BlackBerry had nixed the license it had granted to OnwardMobility out of a want to "distance itself" from the smartphone hardware business.

BlackBerry is presently doing a good alternate in offering protection software for governments and big avid gamers within the company world and has no desire to return to its roots as a smartphone supplier.

The news comes after the shutdown of all telephones working the BlackBerry OS in early January. As of January 4, any person the use of a BlackBerry gadget running any variant of BlackBerry OS (together with the tablet-based mostly BlackBerry PlayBook OS) is no longer competent make or obtain calls, send texts, use Wi-Fi, or access cellular statistics. while they haven't precisely been bricked, they're now functionally pointless.

In a connected blog publish, BlackBerry government Chairman and CEO John Chen announced at the time that: "As of these days, BlackBerry has decommissioned the infrastructure and capabilities used by means of our legacy utility and get in touch with operating systems which can be over twenty years historical now".