Speedrunning the “BlackBerry Smartphone” category —
A cellular phone used to be presupposed to attain in 2021 and never did.
Enlarge / OnwardMobility’s teaser image. A cellular phone never arrived in 2021.
OnwardMobility
BlackBerry phones will dwell unnecessary.
In 2020, we reported on OnwardMobility, a startup that licensed the BlackBerry fee for smartphones and deliberate to open a brand original QWERTY Android cellular phone. There used to be a lot to effort about when the firm ignored its promised 2021 decrease-off date, and appropriate closing month, it needed to invent a blog put up titled “Contrary to conventional belief, we are no longer unnecessary.”
Successfully, the firm’s plans are now unnecessary. Both Daniel Bader of Android Police and Kevin Michaluk (the founder of Crackberry) are independently reporting that OnwardMobility has lost its Blackberry license. Bader says, “Based on sources, BlackBerry is calling to further distance itself from its days as a smartphone dealer after promoting the relaxation of its mobile patent portfolio for $600 million earlier this month.”
On the tip of January, BlackBerry provided its mobile and messaging patents to a brand original firm known as “Catapult IP Enhancements,” which has no products and took on a ton of debt to rating the patents. If Catapult’s notion is to monetize BlackBerry’s patents by suing doable infringers, it is understandable that BlackBerry would must distance itself from the years-lengthy court docket battles that can rapidly start.
BlackBerry bought out of the smartphone market in 2016 after it wager the farm on the Android-powered BlackBerry Priv and lost. Smartphone manufacturers never in actuality die, despite the indisputable truth that; they’re appropriate licensed out to other companies and change into zombie manufacturers. The Chinese language agency TCL licensed its identify from 2016 to 2020, and after that contract expired, OnwardMobility used to be presupposed to be subsequent.
OnwardMobility regarded take care of a firm that can issue on its guarantees, principally thanks to a partnership with Foxconn’s FIH Mobile, a turnkey smartphone operation. OnwardMobility said the cellular phone used to be “coming in 2021,” and its online page persisted to invent that claim several days into 2022. The firm by some means added a blog put up to the positioning on January 7 announcing the instrument wasn’t unnecessary. While the positioning peaceful incorporates several BlackBerry emblems and trademark notices, the most up-to-date blog put up most realistic seemingly says the notion is to invent an “extremely-stable 5G challenge smartphone (peaceful with a keyboard!).”
OnwardMobility hasn’t confirmed the loss of the BlackBerry license, however its most up-to-date blog put up does seem to switch out of its system to no longer point out BlackBerry. We would are waiting for OnwardMobility for comment, however the firm would no longer non-public any public electronic mail addresses. To this point, nothing has gone to notion for OnwardMobility, and it will no longer be frightful to hunt the firm quietly die. Finally, the most authentically “BlackBerry” thing OnwardMobility may possibly well produce is stop the smartphone market.
