>BlackBerry Limited today confirmed that it will no longer create its own phones, instead choosing to rely on hardware partners like China’s TCL Corporation.
>In a statement, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said “The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners.”
>He added, “This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital.”
The news is hardly surprising. Since 2009, BlackBerry’s handset division has been in a terminal death-spiral, while devices running iOS and Android gained ground. Last year, Chen said that if the Canadian company was unable to reverse this downward trend, he would shut down any further hardware development.
>Going forward, any devices that carry the BlackBerry name will be rebadged Android phones from other manufacturers. Last year’s DTEK50 was essentially an Alcatel Idol 4, and the upcoming DTEK60 looks remarkably similar to the Alcatel Idol 4S.
They only did it for the sweet US government contracts. Now that they know they don't need it, time to lower production costs.
David Lopez
Nothing of value was lost
John Lee
:(
Benjamin Rodriguez
So what will happen to this?
Cooper Bennett
That's been dead for a long time sadly.
F
Logan Green
Chen should have been in charge 10 years ago.
it is amazing how much of a lead they had in the market and how they totally blew it.
Ryan Fisher
>wired headphones
Leo Richardson
Thank shitty US patent laws.
Logan Davis
>tfw I'm stuck with the Q10, Passport, and Classic I've only got a Q10 right now, picking up a Passport in a few weeks and a Classic a bit after that then I'll be rotating phones based on whatever I feel like using that day
Jace Parker
Damn, that's the one Android phone I'd actually consider getting
Joseph Scott
I really hope blackberry dies already fucking terrible company rn desu
Grayson Phillips
>3 years from now >"Outsourced BlackBerry phones reported to have Chinese backdoor"
Isaac Martin
Why do you hate good things? I mean, they essentially are dead now but why would you want the only good phone manufacturer to be that way?
Dominic Allen
That's not news, they were already developing a rebranded alcatel with BB software
Austin Turner
NTP shill detected.
Chase Jones
There are no good phone manufacturers, it hasn't been 2012 for 4 years
Grayson Johnson
There were, then BlackBerry died.
Gavin Ross
Blackberry 10 OS was the best phone operating systems I've ever used
Too bad the hardware was utter shit
That's not uncommon for a company to get comfortable and lose their market share - look at MS in the mobile market. Basically BTFO at this point
Luke White
That sucks. Their last 2 phones with android look pretty good, but I think they've been out of the consumer's mind for so long that nobody noticed.
Camden Martin
>There are no good phone manufacturers
How do you define good? I see no big issues with current phones.
Julian Butler
Portrait keyboard is definitely a requirement
Isaiah Johnson
My z10 took shittons of abuse and kept on going. Build quality was amazing. CPU wasn't great, but it still got the job done. ...too bad there were no fucking apps on BBOS, and most android ones were buggy or didn't work at all.
Lincoln Scott
The passport silver edition is the best phone I've ever used.
Really sad about this.
Hope they still update BBOS10 for a few more years.
Benjamin Nelson
Will there Android blackberry phone drop in price? Might be a nice little shit posting device.
Robert Young
Former RIM employee here. There were talks about releasing BB10's source code, though I don't know if the company's still going for it.
Brody Collins
F
Evan Flores
Christ that'd be fucking amazing. How would it work since they still use QNX for other shit though?
Jaxson Foster
Reminder that this is a direct result of our dire intellectual property laws!
As far as I'm aware that was the main obstacle, Blackberry seems to worry about their remaining enterprise customers and doesn't want to jeopardize that position by releasing the code.
There were actually plans to ship low-end Blackberries with Tizen OS, too.
Nathan Miller
What was so good about them? I know they were one of the first smartphones and actually had a keyboard.
Leo Jenkins
BB10OS and the keyboard. Even after they went full retard and switched to Android they still had the best phone simply because physical keyboard.
It's a shame they screwed up the Priv and now there is no chance of them making a better version.
Aaron Powell
Actually want to buy a black berry smart phone because of the keyboard now, what is the best one out? my iphone screen is kill and was going to switch to android but on screen keyboards annoy the shit out of me
Joseph Martin
Classic and Passport are the two best choices
Benjamin Cruz
16gb highest classic goes?
Ethan Edwards
16GB is the only option. Not like it matters much, since it can accept micro SDXC cards
>BB10 as a hypervisor for android and others in the future
I am cum.
Aaron Sanders
I wanted the Priv to be that way, too bad BlackBerry went full retard and made it Android-only.
Isaiah Murphy
Bought the Priv anyway for it being non-rootable (at least for now) and having pretty much guaranteed security updates. Android is so awful. I was going to sell my Priv eventually if they gave BB10 one last hurrah ;_;
Also only has that 1 front facing speaker and doesn't have enough customization in the software. Need BB-tier file management features (usb mount and mass storage modes, wifi SMB/WebDAV, BT/NFC standardized send/receive without apps) at the minimum.
Brayden Edwards
I'm just sticking with BB10OS. Switching from a Q10 to a Passport soon
Colton Hughes
ugh...yeah, I've got a passport myself, so I will probably end up getting another passport and a classic.
I was hoping to finally switch to android with the Rome or whatever, so I could get consistent use with spotify and other android apps.
nothing I love in tech lasts.
Christian Phillips
android is on some made by committee shit, it's not a phone OS, it's just thrown on phones.
bb10 was incredible RIP the palm pre too while we are here and fuck, the Treo because why not.
Cameron Richardson
Typing on screen is better anyhow.
Ryan Sanchez
Personal preferences are a thing, you know. Yours are shit but still, to each his own.
Ryder Ramirez
So I take it that BB10 OS is for literal fedora tippers?
Jordan Hughes
No, it's for people who want a mobile OS that's actually good.
Mason Long
How usable is the Classic still? I hear people complain about it being slow.
Daniel Torres
The Classic's got a slightly better CPU than my Q10 (Snapdragon S4 Plus compared to Snapdragon S4) and I've got absolutely no issues using my Q10.
Dylan Gomez
Yeah lack of apps is for sure what killed it.
>millions of Android phones with root exploits Not even close
For business mainly. People that need solid phones without all the memes. I still miss Blackberry hub, damn carrier locks I had to ditch my Q10
It's still good for phone calls, texts and emails. Not much outside of that.
Tyler Clark
>only has that 1 front facing speaker >I need a device long less than half of my head to have two speakers for premium stereo experience
Matthew Bailey
>expecting a business device to cater to muh autistic media consumption needs I bet you also complain that you can't root it.
Ryan Foster
>On the one hand, NTP had indeed patented the idea of sending email to portable wireless devices.
Patenting an idea - not a physical thing, a product, or anything of it, but patenting a fucking IDEA.
I swear, this world just gets shittier by the fucking picosecond.
Kevin Phillips
I had one it would overheat constantly and had a shit battery life
Hunter Perry
Man its still sad if not for everything else hardware diversity just took another hit, soon we're all going to be basically using the same phone with different skeletons, really sad to see the days of custom build hardware that you can only get on a certain device going. I hope apple at least keeps up designing their own shit, cause I'm pretty sure they're the last company that does.
Jason Flores
no one gives a shit. they died in 2000 fucking 7 when Jobs unveiled the iPhone.
Ian Watson
buy priv, it has android
Connor Ortiz
Never bought anything from them, what did i miss? I went from a nokia 100-something to a sony ericsson then a moto g 1 which i'm still using.
Josiah Lee
easily the best phones for email/texting on
I had a Storm, no idea if that is meme tier around here but I loved it and always wanted a Bold as well but never got one since I went to Android.
The Priv looked great but the price was no go for me
Brandon Stewart
jesus fuck shit, no vienna then
Welp, buying priv right now. I have nothing to wait for anymore.
Kayden Kelly
That was done before and I didn't like it.
Keyboard is just too small for comfortable use.
Lincoln Powell
I can't imagine it'd be smaller than the Q10's keyboard and I love typing on my Q10
Austin Kelly
Didn't work for me, was hitting adjacent keys all the time.
I really liked keyboard on xperia pro tho and Nokia E70 before that.