On the last day of 2021, the story of the Blackberry phone seems to be coming to an end. BlackBerry announced on this day that its support for BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry PlayBook OS is coming to an end, and will no longer provide older services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier, including data Internet access, calls, and text messaging after January 4, 2022.
At this point, it also means that the last bit of the mark belonging to the era of functional machines will also be dissipated, and BlackBerry will officially "break away" from the mobile phone industry, and end the 22-year legendary journey of BlackBerry mobile phones.
Back in 1998, RIM Canada (the predecessor of BlackBerry) introduced the RIM850/950, the biggest feature of these two pager-like devices, the support for push mail services and the small but complete QWERTY keyboard.
In the era when the Internet is in the ascendant and mobile communications are still in the era of 2G networks, the complete and real-time email push brought by BlackBerry can be described as a "long drought" for business people at that time. In a sense, BlackBerry is a pioneer of mobile office, which at that time was not yet developed in the era of mobile communication networks, allowing users to have the ability to communicate with people anytime, anywhere.
As the most successful brand in this field, BlackBerry in the era of the BB system can be said to be a perfect fit for business people. The BES service launched by it enables enterprises to install a mobile gateway and a software system to achieve wireless links with mobile phones, and employees can use mobile phones to work at any time and place. This, coupled with excellent encrypted communications and endorsements from the 9/11 scene to Obama's endorsements, also made BlackBerry the first choice for business people at the time.
But for the mass market, these features of BlackBerry phones are almost completely useless, until the 2006 BlackBerry 7100 "Charm" series, taking photos, navigation and BBM chat functions made consumers addicted to it. In this year, BlackBerry won 48% of the US market, and it can be said that its position in the US market at that time was the same as that of today's iPhone. In 2009, BlackBerry, with the BlackBerry Bold that swept the market, and the BlackBerry OS, which was known for its simple and efficient operation instructions and multitasking capabilities, had gained nearly 20% of the global market share.
Unfortunately, however, the Story of The BlackBerry is also about to reach a turning point. In 2010, Jobs came up with the iPhone 4 that redefined the mobile phone, which opened the curtain of the smart phone era with the speed of lightning and stealing the bell, and also smashed the "rice bowl" of the feature phone. Under the damage of destructive innovation, the blackberry BB system's compromise in order to adapt to the full keyboard was quickly defeated before the smartphone had richer content, larger screens, and more convenient operations.
In the confusion, BlackBerry ushered in the BlackBerry 10 system, which was regarded as a lifesaver. It is developed for touch rather than the traditional full keyboard, integrated with the current popular social networking platform and other changes that embrace the new era, and also let fans see the hope that BlackBerry will adapt to the new era, rather than being abandoned by the times like Nokia.
However, the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 equipped with BB10, and then the BlackBerry Passport and other products, were ultimately applauded. The reason is that BB10 is the same as Microsoft's Windows Phone system, missing the BlackBerry in the smartphone era due to the congenital disadvantage of a small user base, resulting in a lack of third-party developers to join, and the lack of third-party developers makes its software ecology like a pool of stagnant water, and finally it is dragged down by this dead cycle.
After all, after seeing the "flower world" built by iOS and Android rich applications, how many people will go back to experience the BlackBerry phone like the "quit network god machine"?
Of course, for fundamentalist BlackBerry fans, perhaps the BlackBerry phone died long ago in the summer of 2016. In the summer of that year, BlackBerry announced on its official blog that it would stop producing its classic blackBerry Classic and focus on Android in the future. Although BlackBerry, which embraced Android, has gained the blessing of the Android ecosystem, it has also lost the uniqueness of the soft and hardware integration and has become an OEM similar to Samsung.
Does a BlackBerry phone without a trackball and a QWERTY keyboard really still smell that way? This question, TCL's BlackBerry brand model gave a negative answer with facts, and the BlackBerry mobile phone, which has neither previous features nor cost performance, eventually disappeared into the market. On August 31, 2020, TCL, which had taken over the Hardware business of BlackBerry mobile phones, also chose to part ways with BlackBerry.
In fact, unlike nokia's decline, BlackBerry's decline is more like the inevitability of the times. Nokia missed the Android train with pride and prejudice, and from the perspective of future generations, if Nokia had accepted the olive branch of Google at that time, instead of going black with Saipan, perhaps the situation would be very different now. But what are the advantages of BlackBerry? It is a low-bandwidth, low-speed 2G era can achieve real-time mail push, is an ergonomic QWERTY keyboard, and with the arrival of 4G and touch screen, such advantages have become a sign of backwardness.
The evolution of technology has sounded the death knell for BlackBerry, and it is clear that there is no place for BlackBerry in the new era. However, one thing to say is that In giving up hardware to fully embrace the software business, BlackBerry is still very humane, as early as the end of 2018, BlackBerry mobile phone launched the BlackBerry OS shutdown plan, announced that it will shut down the system in two years, that is, in early 2021, but for the sake of users, it has been operating BlackBerry OS until now.
It can only be said that although the technology tree pointed out by BlackBerry has made it shine in the era of functional machines, the incompatibility with smart machines is also doomed to its decline.