BlackBerry’s legacy devices will no longer function reliably from 4 January 2022, as the company will decommission services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, as well as PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier.
The company said that data, phone call, SMS, and emergency services functionality would be affected by the shutdown of these software versions.
BlackBerry, which has moved away from phones to become a software company focused on developing “intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments,” initially announced the discontinuation in September 2020.
Despite this, the company — partnering with OnwardMobility — announced plans to launch a 5G device with a physical keyboard in 2021.
However, BlackBerry and OnwardMobility’s 5G device is yet to materialise. the best BlackBerry devices that South Africans came to know, as well as the services that made BlackBerry great.
What made BlackBerry a hit
BlackBerry was voted as the coolest phone brand in South Africa for three years running — from 2011 to 2013.
Similarly, its native messaging app, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), was voted as the coolest app over the same period.
The company’s dominance in South Africa can be attributed to the combination of affordable devices, the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), and the popularity of BBM.
The BlackBerry Curve 8520 made for an affordable entry point for South Africans to access the benefits of BBM and BIS.
BIS allowed unlimited on-device data usage for R59 a month — an unmatched offering at 20% of the cost of a gigabyte of mobile data in South Africa at the time.
However, from 2014 the company fell from its top spot in South Africa, as smartphones from Samsung and Apple began to increase in popularity.
WhatsApp’s rise as a cross-platform mobile messaging service and BlackBerry’s reluctance to make BBM available on competitor devices also contributed to its downfall.
Finally, congestion on the BIS network was the straw that broke the camel’s back, with sluggish data speeds and the service going offline for extended periods of time.
These factors combined to dethrone BlackBerry with iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Huawei smartphones quickly overtaking it
BlackBerry Curve 8520
Affordable and easy to use. When it was released it was one of the best-valued smartphones on the market.
Source: mybroadband
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