For a decade the BlackBerry was the phone of the Dhaka executive: a physical keyboard, a blinking red light and BBM, the messenger everyone in the office was on. That era formally ends on 4 January 2022. BlackBerry Limited has confirmed that, from that date, phones running its own operating systems will "no longer reliably function".
Which phones stop working
The shutdown covers BlackBerry OS 7.1 and earlier, BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier. That is every Bold, Curve, Torch, Q10, Z10, Passport and Classic ever sold. The company is switching off the back-end services those phones depend on, so after 4 January they may fail to make calls, send SMS, use mobile data or Wi-Fi, or even dial emergency numbers. In practice the handset becomes a keyboard with a battery.
Phones that carry the BlackBerry name but run Android, the KEYone and KEY2 made under licence by TCL, are not affected. They will keep working like any other Android phone, though TCL stopped making them in 2020.
How it came to this
BlackBerry, based in Waterloo, Canada, replaced its ageing software with BlackBerry 10 in 2013 in a late attempt to match iOS and Android. Users did not follow. In 2015 the company moved its own phones to Android, in 2016 it handed hardware to TCL and an Indian partner, and after October 2018 no new BlackBerry-branded phone appeared. A Texas start-up, OnwardMobility, promised a 5G BlackBerry for 2021; it never shipped.
The company itself is not disappearing. It sold its last phone years ago and now makes security software for governments and corporations, including the QNX system inside millions of cars.
If you still have one in a drawer
- Move your contacts and photos now. Once services stop, the easiest export routes (BlackBerry Link, cloud sync) may stop with them. Copy everything to a computer over USB, or e-mail yourself the contact list as a vCard file.
- Take the SIM out and put it in any Android phone. Your number, your bKash and your bank OTPs will work as before; only the handset is retiring.
- Do not sell it as a working phone. Second-hand markets in Dhaka still list BlackBerry 10 devices; after 4 January they are collectors' items, not phones.
- Recycle rather than bin. Several brands' service centres in Dhaka and Chattogram accept old handsets for e-waste disposal.
The physical keyboard lives on in a few niche Android phones, but the BlackBerry as a platform, the one that once had 85 million subscribers and its own instant messenger, is done.
