BlackBerry Has Pulled The Plug On Its BlackBerry OS Devices

Last Updated on January 1, 2022 by Anu Joy

Before the advent of instant messaging services like Facebook and Whatsapp, BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) was a crowd favourite. BlackBerry phones were hot sellers, especially in the corporate world owing to their secured messaging and mailing services. Another major highlight was the physical QWERTY keyboard which was more convenient and useful in many ways.  

BlackBerry’s Attempt to Stay Relevant

The emergence of the Apple iPhone and a few windows phones with touchscreens rendered the BlackBerry phones with physical QWERTY keyboards redundant. BlackBerry tried to stay relevant by producing touchscreen phones loaded with the Blackberry OS, but it soon faced stiff competition from Android smartphones. The Canadian company finally decided to jump on the Android bandwagon in 2015, but that too didn’t work for them as people fancied other instant messaging and mailing services. Later it decided to outsource its phones to other companies, which indicated that the end was near.

BlackBerry Finally Pulls the Plug

Now according to a report, the company has decided to pull the plug on its classic smartphones running on BlackBerry OS 7.1 or earlier from January 2022. If you have such a BlackBerry device lying around, then bear in mind it will not be able to call, text, access the internet, emergency calls etc., rendering it virtually useless. BlackBerry OS 10 devices might still be able to access the internet via Wi-Fi and perform a few functions. But BlackBerry suggests not to use Wi-Fi and mobile data as it could be unreliable and vulnerable to attacks. Applications such as BlackBerry Link, BlackBerry Desktop Manager, BlackBerry World, BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry Messenger, and BlackBerry Blend can be accessed, but with limited functionality. 

If you still have data lying around in your BlackBerry device then there are still a few days left before the January 4 deadline. You can check out BlackBerry’s support website for information regarding the migration of data to other platforms.