While the world had already moved on with touchscreen smartphones, many BlackBerry loyalists had hoped to see a new PKB smartphone from OnwardMobility, the company that was supposed to deliver a BlackBerry-branded 5G device. Unable to keep up to the promise and with a lack of proper communication with the community over the past year, new reports now state that OnwardMobility has lost the rights to the BlackBerry name and plans for the BlackBerry 5G device has been shelved.
The new reports come from the team from Android Police and Kevin Michaluk, the new founder of the new CrackBerry website. According to their sources, OnwardMobility’s license to use the BlackBerry branding has been canceled and further development of the new BlackBerry 5G device has ceased. The reports also indicate that John Chen, the CEO of BlackBerry, is no longer keen to be a part of the smartphone space, which comes right after the company had recently sold most of its remaining mobile patents for $600 million. With the increase of supply-chain issues going on and with the delays from OnwardMobility, it’s no wonder that the CEO of BlackBerry had canceled the rights to use the brand name and not support the project any further.
The news isn’t surprising, considering the fact that OnwardMobility did not keep in touch with its consumer base for months and their social media channels were filled with comments from those waiting for it. Even after the new year had passed by, the website of OnwardMobility still had the words “New BlackBerry 5G smartphone, Coming 2021“, which indicated that the company did not even bother to update their website. When BlackBerry had pulled the plug on its servers after January 4th, 2022, all its legacy devices that ran on the old BB OS software and apps would no longer work with carrier connections, WiFi, or even emergency calls. This left with only the Android-powered devices such as KEYone and KEY2 series smartphones as the only choice left for those wanting a functional PKB device.
And just as hopes of a new BlackBerry 5G device was fading away, OnwardMobility did finally update their website and their social media channels on 7th January with a blog post, stating that the company is still operating and plans to release the new smartphone, along with an apology for keeping consumers out of the loop, and monthly promises on the development of the ultra-secure 5G smartphone. The company also confirmed that they weren’t able to deliver the promise last year due to “various delays that prevented us from shipping in 2021“. However, even after a month had passed, the company once again did not deliver its monthly updates on a regular pattern.
Looking back at 2016, after BlackBerry had confirmed that it won’t be manufacturing smartphones, the company had announced that it had inked a deal with TCL as the global partner to make BlackBerry-branded smartphones. Even before the deal was set, TCL had already been releasing BlackBerry-branded smartphones such as the DTEK50/DTEK60, but those were just simply rebranded devices with some BlackBerry enhancements.
TCL had launched the BlackBerry KEYone, an Android smartphone with a built-in keyboard and with all the goodness of BlackBerry apps and security features. While the design was quite good, the KEYone boasted mid-range specifications with a focus on battery life. TCL then later released several smartphones such as the BlackBerry KEY2, and the KEY2 LE. While the KEYone was criticized for the lack of sufficient RAM and performance, the KEY2 came with double the RAM, storage capacity, and a better mid-range processor. However, the sales of the BlackBerry KEY2 did not meet expectations.
While many had hoped to see a KEY3 model, the deal between BlackBerry and TCL came to an end in 2020. The latter confirmed that it would bring support for the BlackBerry smartphones until August 2022. Even today, not even the BlackBerry KEY2 had received any new Android OS upgrade, and current owners are still stuck with Android 8.1. And unless the bootloaders are unlockable, there is no chance for developers from the Android community to craft the latest custom ROM for these models for those Android enthusiasts. This is where BlackBerry had announced that they had set a deal with FIH Mobile and OnwardMobility for the launch of a “Global Flagship” that featured Android OS and a built-in keyboard.
We all have come across this news several times over the last many years, mentioning that BlackBerry smartphones won’t be produced any longer, and with the new reports, it could be the final nail in the coffin. I’m sure this has confused a lot of people if BlackBerry is still making smartphones or not. We could have hoped that BlackBerry would pass the license to manufacture smartphones to another brand like TCL, but from the looks of the situation, and with John Chen trying to distance the company from the smartphone market, it would be highly unlikely that we would ever see a new BlackBerry smartphone released again. While there are some brands such as Unihertz that offer PKB smartphones, those devices do not feature the kind of security as BlackBerry offers.
With the impact of the big players such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, Blackberry-based smartphones that ran BlackBerry OS had no chance in competing against the likes of Android OS and iOS devices. While the security of the BlackBerry OS is what set apart the platform, the majority of the people still preferred the flexibility and the availability of thousands of apps on Android and iOS platform, along with better hardware specifications. While the BlackBerry 5G smartphone was never revealed by OnwardMobility, nor there had been any sort of leaks or renders of the device, the reports also stated that the smartphone had shared similar design cues from the BlackBerry Priv, a full-screen Android smartphone with a built-in keyboard slider that was released back in 2015.
As of today, at the time of writing, OnwardMobility has yet to declare an official statement regarding the loss of its BlackBerry license. And there is still no word if the company still plans to resume its PKB smartphone development sans the BlackBerry branding. While many would think that nobody uses a BlackBerry smartphone, there is still a large consumer base out there that was waiting for the new device, and the user base deserves an explanation from OnwardMobility regarding their silence on the matter.
UPDATE (19/02/2022): Just a few weeks after rumors circulated that OnwardMobility had lost the rights to the BlackBerry brand, the company has now announced an official statement that they are shutting down their business and will no longer go ahead with the new BlackBerry 5G smartphone as reported earlier. More on here.
