The BlackBerry OS, operating system created by the company of the same name, should stop working from this Tuesday (4). The servers that kept the system up and running will be shut down this week, marking the end of an era in smartphones. The announcement had taken place in September 2020 and is now close to becoming a reality.
All devices running BlackBerry 7.1 or earlier versions, such as the BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, are expected to no longer function reliably as of January 4, 2022. It doesn’t mean that everything will simply freeze and devices will stay inoperable right away, but shutting down the servers should prevent the internet connection and can affect all web services.
Devices will lose access to BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry Password Keeper, BlackBerry ID, PIN-to-PIN device messages, hosted email addresses, and just about anything else that relies on external servers. BlackBerry Messenger, a rival service to MSN and others, had already been shut down in 2019. If you are a nostalgic person who loves the company, you will need to accept the fact and migrate to Android or iOS.
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End of the BlackBerry OS line
Although it was once one of the market leaders, BlackBerry changed its system after falling behind in the race against Android and iOS devices. With the drop in market share, the company decided to abandon its project and produce phones embedded with Android in 2015. These models — such as the KeyOne, Key2 and Key2 LE — with Google’s system will not be affected and will continue to run normally, although they haven’t received updates for a while.
The BlackBerry OS retirement is expected to have almost no impact on the mobile operating system market. Today, Android dominates over 70% of devices, followed by iOS with over 29%. The remaining 1% is subdivided between Samsung, KaiOS, Nokia and other smaller ones, all old and highly outdated software when compared to competitors.
Although it announced a return to the phone market in 2021, BlackBerry ended the year in blank, still without a new model announced. The company’s next launch would be a result of the partnership with Foxconn and would present cell phones compatible with the 5G, initially launched in North America and Europe.
