BlackBerry has been away from the mobile phone business for a long time, but they still provide legacy services support for their operating system, BlackBerry OS. But this support will end in a matter of days.
On its official website, BlackBerry said it would stop supporting legacy services for the BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier operating systems, BlackBerry 10, and BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.1 and earlier versions on January 4, 2022.
After that date, devices running the above operating systems and software, whether via cellular network or Wi-Fi, will not be able to perform essential basic functions, such as phone calls, SMS, data, and even emergency calls to 911.
"We chose to extend our service until then as an expression of gratitude to our partners and loyal customers," BlackBerry said in the FAQ page on its official website, as quoted by us, Friday (12/31/2021).
In addition to the BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry PlayBook OS operating systems, the Canadian company also said that applications such as BlackBerry Link, BlackBerry Desktop Manager, BlackBerry World, BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry Messenger, and BlackBerry Blend will have limited functionality.
BlackBerry itself switched from a hardware company to a software company in 2016. Since then they have focused on providing intelligence security software and services for companies to governments.
In 2017, they announced they would provide at least two years of support for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry network access support for at least two years for devices running BlackBerry OS.
The discontinuation of support for BlackBerry OS is certainly not something surprising. In 2019, the company that once dominated the world's mobile market shut down its app store and global BlackBerry Messenger service.
Seeing the popularity of Android phones and iPhones, BlackBerry also had time to launch mobile phones with touch screens. They then stopped making phones with BlackBerry OS and switched to Android before finally leaving the hardware business.
The latest news says BlackBerry phones will be reborn and brought by OnwardMobility, the company that acquired the rights to produce BlackBerry branded phones.
This mysterious phone will reportedly be launched this year in North America and Europe first, and then to the Asian market. But until now the phone still can't see the bridge of the nose
