TECH: BlackBerry is removing support for its classic smartphones running on its own operating system as of January 4.

Black­Ber­ry is end­ing sup­port for smart­phones and tablets run­ning on its oper­at­ing sys­tem
These devices will no longer receive, make phone calls, text mes­sages, use data, or call 911 as of Jan­u­ary 4.
How­ev­er, Black­Ber­ry devices run­ning Android will still have the ser­vice.
Black­Ber­ry, the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny that took the world by storm in 2000 with its clas­sic smart­phone, announced on Fri­day that it was killing sup­port for the icon­ic device.

This means that these tech­nolo­gies will no longer receive or make phone calls and texts, use data or call 911.

Black­Ber­ry said in the announce­ment that WiFi and mobile data could also become unre­li­able and that appli­ca­tions such as Black­Ber­ry Link, Black­Ber­ry Desk­top Man­ag­er, Black­Ber­ry World, Black­Ber­ry Pro­tect, Black­Ber­ry Mes­sen­ger and Black­Ber­ry Blend “will also have lim­it­ed functionality.” .

Black­Ber­ry, the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny that took the world by storm in 2000 with its clas­sic smart­phone, announced on Fri­day that it was end­ing sup­port for the icon­ic device. As of Jan­u­ary 4, 2022, all devices run­ning Black­Ber­ry 7.1 and ear­li­er, Black­Ber­ry 10 soft­ware, and Black­Ber­ry OS 2.1 and ear­li­er will all become obso­lete.
Black­ber­ry first hit the mar­ket in 2000 and became a sta­ple for pro­fes­sion­als as the smart­phone made it easy for users to write and send emails.

The smart­phone expe­ri­enced a dra­mat­ic increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty from 2001 to 2007 as it toured the world.

How­ev­er, in 2016, Black­ber­ry lost its throne of the first smart­phone in 2016, which was main­ly due to Apple’s iPhone.

And ulti­mate­ly, it was Black­Ber­ry’s inabil­i­ty to adapt, lack of con­sumer knowl­edge and poor design that led to its demise in 2018, when the com­pa­ny announced it would stop pro­duc­ing the smartphone.

“There is no impact on the new Black­Ber­ry Pro­tect, which is an AI-based end­point secu­ri­ty solu­tion,” accord­ing to Black­Ber­ry
The last ver­sion of the Black­Ber­ry oper­at­ing sys­tem it released was in 2013, so devices that could lose their sup­port are very old, reports Ars Technica.

The change planned for next month is that Black­Ber­ry will no longer release updates for these devices.

“The ter­mi­na­tion of these ser­vice offer­ings and this infra­struc­ture will also have an impact on the func­tion­al­i­ty of appli­ca­tions such as Enhanced Sim Based (ESBL) / Iden­ti­ty Based Licens­ing (IBL), email address­es host­ed by Black­Ber­ry, Black­Ber­ry Link, Black­Ber­ry Desk­top Man­ag­er, Black­Ber­ry Blend, Black­Ber­ry Pro­tect (allows con­sumers to lock, locate or erase BBOS devices, Black­Ber­ry 10 remote­ly, “Black­Ber­ry explained in the announcement.