Blackberry Classic Phones Are About To Lose Support

It doesn't seem that long ago when mobile phones (or do we still call them cell phones) became available to the general public. We have used them at The Whale for live broadcasts for as long as they have been around, beginning with those huge handheld monsters and the cumbersome bag phones. The batteries were enormous on the bag phone, but it worked.

Over the years, the one mobile phone I thought looked the coolest, was the Blackberry phone. And I was excited when I bought my first Blackberry. It became a very popular phone, especially in the business world.

As you know, the Blackberry phone lost its footing in the marketplace as other smartphones began to overtake it with more options. Even so, Blackberry continued to exist.

But according to Cnet.com, Blackberry will be ceasing support for its classic phones on Tuesday (January 4th, 2022.) The article points out the Blackberry 10 was the last version of Mobile OS, released in 2013, and in the world of mobile phones, that's a long time and qualifies as ancient.

The Blackberry website posted the following notice:

As a reminder, the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022.  As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality.

During the time I owned Blackberry phones, I really enjoyed using them. I preferred the raised keyboard versus a touch screen. But technology moves forward faster than I can write an article about it.

For more information about Blackberry 10 end-of-life questions and answers, visit Blackberry.com. 

via Cnet.com, Blackberry