What happened to the BlackBerry 5G promised by OnwardMobility for this year?

byFlorian published on

OnwardMobility failed to deliver the first BlackBerry 5G it had promised for the first half of this year

OnwardMobility and its partner have said they will develop a new BlackBerry that will arrive in the first half of this year with support for 5G connectivity. And the new licensees knew what differentiates a BlackBerry from any other handset by announcing that the handset would be equipped with a physical QWERTY keyboard. But as PCMag points out, 2021 only has a few more weeks to go and no one has heard a glance from OnwardMobility.

The company said in February it had hired staff, including a European business manager and a government sales manager. But in an email to PCMag, OnwardMobility recently wrote: “At this time, OnwardMobility is unable to share any further details or conduct interviews. Thank you for your patience as they continue to develop the world's most productive, user-friendly and secure mobile device. " 

Surely there are enough fans of physical keyboards that the first supporting 5G might interest them. At present, a company called Unihertz was pushing the Titan to the price of $340. The device looks like an Android version of the BlackBerry Passport with its wide body and larger QWERTY keys. Unihertz also produced a 30% smaller version of Titan. This model, the Titan Pocket, will set you back $300 (and is currently out of stock).
BlackBerry was the second largest smartphone company in the world in 2006. That year, the last before the iPhone debuted in 2007, the industry shipped a total of 64 million smartphones for the entire year. . Compare this figure with the 1,38 billion units delivered in 2020. Nokia was the leading smartphone maker at the time with nearly 50% of the market share.
In 2007, BlackBerry sold 11,77 million smartphones against 3,3 million iPhones delivered by Apple. Nokia shipped over 60 million smartphones that year, BlackBerry in second place. In 2008, the parent company of BlackBerry Research In Motion (RIM) thought it had to take on Apple (which shipped 13,8 million iPhone units in 2008 compared to 23,6 million BlackBerry handsets) and therefore came up with the BlackBerry Storm.

The idea was that the user would press down on the touchscreen and get the same tactile experience as pressing a real key on the keyboard. The first variant of the device was a big failure as the device did not have Wi-Fi support and there was no proper app store. Still, Verizon has sold a ton of it, though almost every unit has been returned to the carrier for repair. The BlackBerry Storm 2 had the right keyboard and added Wi-Fi connectivity, but by then it was too late.

In 2011, 93,1 million iPhone smartphones shipped against 51,1 million BlackBerry phones. You can read BlackBerry's response to the iPhone by reading the arrogant and clueless quotes attributed to co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis after the unveiling of the iPhone in January 2007. Executives only saw the iPhone as a threat when it was too late.

BlackBerry fans deserve to know what's going on with the phone they've been promised

BlackBerry began to offer touchscreen phones with physical QWERTY keyboards. On some models, the keyboard would slide out to leave more room on the screen. One of the best BlackBerry models to combine a touchscreen and a physical keyboard was the Bold 9930. But the software continued to hold back BlackBerry until it finally gave in and installed Android to run BlackBerry Priv in 2015, giving finally to BlackBerry users the application store had been demanding.

BlackBerry fans were hoping OnwardMobility would give them everything they wanted from a modern 'Berry, including the physical keyboard, flagship-grade cameras, a powerful chipset, huge battery, and 5G capability. The license holder is already late and it would be nice to get a statement from the company outlining exactly what's going on. The company owes it to the legions of BlackBerry fans whose hopes it raised at the start of last year.

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