Classic BlackBerry Smartphones Are Officially Dead

[ahurst]

BlackBerry’s market share grew to its peak I’m 2010, three years after the release of the iPhone.

Ironically a key part of what did them in. Apart from management rifts between the two co-CEOs, the company was faced with the threat of the iPhone at a time of absolutely massive growth, which took so much of their focus and attention that they didn’t see past it and plan a proper response.

Verizon wanted a touchscreen iPhone competitor from them and they weren’t working on one already, so they massively rushed their half-baked response (BlackBerry Storm, anyone?) so badly that pretty much every unit had to be recalled for QA reasons. Verizon was understandably upset, and turned to Motorola to see if they could make an iPhone competitor with Google’s new smartphone OS. The rest, of course, is history.

If you want to read up on how it all went bad, there’s a pretty good book called Losing The Signal that lays out the full rise and fall of the RIM empire. For now, we can rest easy knowing Apple isn’t under any of the massive external/internal pressures RIM was in 2010.

 

[ian87w]

Ironically a key part of what did them in. Apart from management rifts between the two co-CEOs, the company was faced with the threat of the iPhone at a time of absolutely massive growth, which took so much of their focus and attention that they didn’t see past it and plan a proper response.

Verizon wanted a touchscreen iPhone competitor from them and they weren’t working on one already, so they massively rushed their half-baked response (BlackBerry Storm, anyone?) so badly that pretty much every unit had to be recalled for QA reasons. Verizon was understandably upset, and turned to Motorola to see if they could make an iPhone competitor with Google’s new smartphone OS. The rest, of course, is history.

If you want to read up on how it all went bad, there’s a pretty good book called Losing The Signal that lays out the full rise and fall of the RIM empire. For now, we can rest easy knowing Apple isn’t under any of the massive external/internal pressures RIM was in 2010.

Ah, the good old days where a US carrier could dictate what a phone maker should do, and the OEMs couldn’t innovate themselves. Although this seems like a US issue, I’m just glad there’s Apple telling the carriers “nah, we’ll do what we want.”

 

[mikegoldnj]

Thanks I don’t care about os, it’s the keyboard for a friend who wants hardware . Issue is that the device you mention is ancient at this point

Unihertz Titan 6GB+128GB, Rugged QWERTY Smartphone, Android 9.0 Unlocked Smart Phone, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0841HHLT9/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_0RE7MCNABFV8QN0PRN30

 

[Tsepz]

Ah, the good old days where a US carrier could dictate what a phone maker should do, and the OEMs couldn’t innovate themselves. Although this seems like a US issue, I’m just glad there’s Apple telling the carriers “nah, we’ll do what we want.”

Do you remember the situation Samsung had with the carriers with the first 2 Galaxy S models? For the Galaxy S1 and S2, if I remember correctly each had at least 4 variants of the same phone with different names e.g. Galaxy Fascinate, Vibrant, Epic, Captivate etc…. I honestly felt bad for the US consumer base, incredible how much power US carriers had over these phone companies.

I think what changed the game here was the Software Update situation that caused fragmentation between variants of the same model and required more resources which networks didn’t want to waste money on along with the incoming of App Stores, nobody wanted to deal with carrier bloat and extra carrier services anymore, they wanted their own apps and own their experience.

 

[webkit]

Ah, the good old days where a US carrier could dictate what a phone maker should do, and the OEMs couldn’t innovate themselves. Although this seems like a US issue, I’m just glad there’s Apple telling the carriers “nah, we’ll do what we want.”

I don't know that this was a situation of Verizon dictating what BB/RIM should do as BB/RIM still continued to make their other phones. The agreement would've/could've been good for both sides. If the phone ended up being successful, BB/RIM would've certainly benefited and Verizon would've benefited in a similar fashion that AT&T benefited from being the exclusive carrier for the iPhone early on.

Apple and Microsoft have benefited from things like Office software being made available for Macs, but I wouldn't say Apple dictated that MS make the software for Mac.

 

[iFunk]

I worked with RIM on various products launch in my career of 2+ decades in the wireless industry. It always blew my mind that they felt they were on top of things for so longer and didn't pivot and move quick enough based upon the market.

I recall an article where one of their higher ups said no one would want a phone with a camera!?! Boy did they get that wrong out of the gate!

Also, who remembers just 10-years ago when they had to fire 2 higher ups for being drunk on a plane? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...drunk-grounded-jet-en-route-Canada-China.html

I still have 6 old BB devices going back to the Curve which believe it or not was a great selling device. Boy have times changed. Anyway, I jumped off the BB train many many many moons ago.

 

[webkit]

I recall an article where one of their higher ups said no one would want a phone with a camera!?! Boy did they get that wrong out of the gate!

RIM's early phone years were more focused on the enterprise business and things like security and email capabilities than the consumer business and cameras. However, the BB Pearl had a camera before the first iPhone even hit the market.

 

[iFunk]

RIM's early phone years were more focused on the enterprise business and things like security and email capabilities than the consumer business and cameras. However, the BB Pearl had a camera before the first iPhone even hit the market.

Yes, you are correct. I had to lookback and found this... ""Cameraphones will be rejected by corporate users." – Mike Lazaridis, 2003. While some handsets, mostly BlackBerry models, do offer a 'no camera' option, that is more for the security of a business. There is no indication whatsoever that businessmen have rejected cameras on phones." https://www.phonearena.com/news/The...from-Jim-Balsillie-and-Mike-Lazaridis_id31751

I did recall they finally jumped on board with cameras and offered an option WOC or without camera. I recall selling devices to corporations that did not want their employees to have camera for security purposes. It was great they rolled out software later down the round to allow settings/features to be enabled/disabled from the server side as needed.

 

[Fat_Guy]

I think the last hurray for BlackBerry 10 devices was that thin sliver of time in 2015 when the square Passport came out but was not yet available in the States. So I was nearing Central Park close to where the Apple store was and pulled it out to check a location - and you could see and feel people waiting at the light maneuver and catch a sideways glance at this bizarre phone. At one place this woman yelled “Hey that’s a Passport!” And at another company a crowd gathered as I showed them the new gesture based functions and capacitive scrolling over the keyboard. That was January of 2015 in corporate America.



I still have that phone and wiped it on January 3. BlackBerrys have a protection system and an ID that brick a device if it can’t communicate with the owner and BlackBerry servers. That is why shutting down the servers may brick many old Blackberries. Also my Passport had an early version of VOLTD but not the one now in use so voice goes over 3G and data over 4G. That means in the States these devices will stop working as towers drop 3G. So after 8 years of support my phone becomes irrelevant. But good memories.



I get this is a fan website for Apple and I have 2 iPhones, an Apple Watch and AirPods - but be careful of being too smug - BlackBerry was once like that and see what happened. They stopped inovating while others took the mantle of creating new tech and Blackberry could not make up the gap in time. Nothing stays on top forever.



IBM was a hardware company but not anymore. Microsoft failed at the phone game and now is huge in cloud services. Blackberry ditched phones before it was too late and exists as a cyber security company. What happened to Kodak? Blockbuster Video was huge and had a chance to purchase Netflix for peanuts. Everyone has their day and then things change…



As of now all services are still up at BlackBerry, but the news gave the CEO a chance to get on the air and pitch their new services.



Just a different point of view here.

 

[Fat_Guy]

Ok now Blackberry is turning things off.


First you could see apps in BlackBerry World but could not download. Now is a DNS failure.


BlackBerry Protect is a DNS failure.



No idea about Blackberry ID.



There is a certain morbid curiosity about watching this all shut down. Anyway back to work.

 

[MacBH928]

Honestly blackberry was a great smartphone and its messaging service with physical keyboard is still to me the best experience for that, its just that iphone and android expanded on the capability of what a cellphone is and what it is used for. BB was really built for function and I love that and their mouse thingy worked surprisingly well.

None the less, they priced their phone similar to iphone which could do so much more, they software was really dreadful with restarts and such, and they stuck in their Lala land thinking no one will take their throne and did not adapt to the market (reminds me of a book called "Who moved my cheese?" ) . Meanwhile Google came all the way from nothing to creating Android to making it the most popular smartphone OS.

Have RIM acted earlier , we really could be in a world that is iOS/BBoS instead of iOS/Android with their killer messenger and user base but they do not have a Steve Jobs, they had a John Sculley.

It all began here:

I am not sure what they are talking about, I never heard about corporates being excited over iPhones. Sure they use them now as the standard but I do not see thats the reason iPhone got successful. Its the average consumer that made ipods successful are the ones that made iPhone successful. Has nothing to do with corporate.

My Proof? Top apps now "Snapchat, Tiner, TikTok, Disney+" Top paid apps "#1 Procreate Pocket, a baby app for #2, going outside app #5, #6 sleep tracking app" and Apple has a dedicate section for games .... games, not corporate apps.

Amateur hour is over.

I hate it when corporates release a bd product and promote as the greatest thing ever. I feel sorry for consumers who believe them and wasted their dollars.

As another milestone in the BlackBerry journey, we will be taking steps to decommission the legacy services for BlackBerry

Business speak for you've been taken for a ride.

doublespeak

Empires rise, and empires fall. It's strange to think that one day in the future we'll be talking about the demise of the iPhone.

You say the truth, if they continue to exist they can shrink a lot in size or alter to be a different company like Nokia used to be a toilet paper company, then consumer cellphone company, now I don't know what they do.

Just out of interest, why would it need a BB service to make a call or send a text? Was everything routed through the BB servers?

yes, my understanding for a telecom to provide BB service they had to install a physicall(maybe virtual?! idk) BB server/system that will handle all the BB messages and go through them to ensure encryption. At the time, some countries insisted that BB unlocks the encryption for them because if they ban BBM service in their country they will look like a a dystopian backwards dictatorship , if they let BBM work they no longer can snoop on citizens.

BB messenger really was the killer feature of Blackberry .

 

[Fat_Guy]

As of about 11:00PM Eastern all NOCs were dark (or at least in North America and Europe). No BIS or BES. No BBW or BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry ID. The BlackBerry pip icon does not show on wifi anywhere in the world.



BBM is still up in the air. I have enterprise security with BlackBerry but not BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) on the Passport some iPhones and Samsung and it still is working.


Practically speaking all the early BBOS and B10 devices are now crippled. There are only a small amount of active users - especially BBOS and BIS users! There are still literally millions of Android BlackBerry phones out there though. From the Priv to DETEK versions and on to the Key versions. Then there are the unique versions for the third world we hardly know about. Carrier support for these will end first in the US and then in Canada but the phones could still soldier on much later in Europe and especially Africa. So not completely dead yet…

 

[webkit]

None the less, they priced their phone similar to iphone which could do so much more

Not necessarily. Keep in mind, it was the carriers that were largely setting final selling prices and those prices were typically subsidized by plan contracts. The original iPhone's price was dropped to $399 a few months after it launched and even at that new lower price you could still get some new BlackBerrys for less than half that amount with a 2-year AT&T contract which was required for the iPhone.

 

[MacBH928]

Not necessarily. Keep in mind, it was the carriers that were largely setting final selling prices and those prices were typically subsidized by plan contracts. The original iPhone's price was dropped to $399 a few months after it launched and even at that new lower price you could still get some new BlackBerrys for less than half that amount with a 2-year AT&T contract which was required for the iPhone.

am not sure but IIRC they were priced similarly I just had to make one choice : BlackBerry or iPhone

 

[MacBH928]

There are still literally millions of Android BlackBerry phones out there though. From the Priv to DETEK versions and on to the Key versions. Then there are the unique versions for the third world we hardly know about. Carrier support for these will end first in the US and then in Canada but the phones could still soldier on much later in Europe and especially Africa. So not completely dead yet…

Thats the problem of the consumers who made the illogical decision to buy a dying brand phone. Could have bought a pixel or samsung. Although being an Android phone, it will continue to work independent from Blackberry.

 

[webkit]

am not sure but IIRC they were priced similarly I just had to make one choice : BlackBerry or iPhone

BlackBerrys were 25% to 75% cheaper, at least when going with AT&T and a 2-year contract which was your only choice if you wanted an iPhone in its early years. The original iPhone cost $399 (after price was lowered) but a BB 8820 could be had for $299, a BB Pearl could be had for $149, a BB Curve 8310 could be had for $99, etc.

However, Apple and AT&T did continue to reduce iPhone prices in the coming years which brought pricing a bit closer together but BB selling prices were also lowered and some became practically "free" - again, with AT&T contracts.