ICYMI: On January 4, 2022, BlackBerry pulled the plug on their phone models that do not run on Android.
Yup, that means saying goodbye to the classic phone models with the iconic QWERTY keypad, which had been running on the BlackBerry OS. To the millennials/early Gen-Z, if you didn’t have a BlackBerry at least once in your life, then what were you even doing? Jk jk.
Anyway, to give one last hurrah to a classic, here are some factors that made the BlackBerry phones wanted by everybody, before they were overtaken by the waves of innovation and technology.
It was one of the world’s first smartphones
Before the dawn of the touch-screen iPhones and the Android OS, there was the BlackBerry. What smartphones can do now, BlackBerry did it first—sending emails while on-the-go, internet connectivity, and a totally secure software.
All in their BlackBerry 957 model released in 2000. In the mid-2000s, almost everyone who was working probably opted for a BlackBerry because of its functionality and reliability. Even prominent people and celebrities had them.
The ever iconic, physical QWERTY keypad that made their phones stand out
BlackBerry’s QWERTY keypads really did give that “Y2K” aesthetic, you know? Like, even now, when you think of a phone from BlackBerry, it had to have that QWERTY keypad and that trackball function.
You’d possibly be thinking about the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve, or BlackBerry Pearl. Either one of those phone models. Rarely would you think of a touch-screen BlackBerry phone, since it came out more recently.
Outstanding security features
To save the company in 2013, they hired John Chen as the new CEO and began their shift in focus to security software. Which, was possibly thanks to their reputation of having solid security features. And now that they’ve changed from producing phones to providing security software to government agencies, it’s probably the best choice.
Once beloved by many, it’s now time to bid farewell to one heck of phone models. Goodbye, BlackBerry Mobile (BBM). Your legacy will be remembered by many a professional and many a person who did have BlackBerrys.
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