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BlackBerry's 'Classic' Smartphone Is About to Disappear (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the good-riddance dept.

From a Reuters report:The beleaguered tech company continues its shift to software. BlackBerry will stop making its Classic smartphone, 18 months after launching it in an effort to entice users who prefer physical, rather than touch, keyboards, the Canadian technology company said on Tuesday. The Classic was launched early last year, with a physical keyboard in the vein of its Bold predecessor and powered by the company own overhauled BlackBerry 10 operating system. BlackBerry has since launched a phone powered by Alphabet's Android software and plans several more, and BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen last month expressed confidence the company's trimmed-down handset business can turn a profit by a self-imposed September deadline.

7 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. It's Like by invictusvoyd · · Score: 5, Funny

    McDonald's will stop making burgers and now sell burritos.

    1. Re:It's Like by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well if most of the American population suddenly stopped eating burgers and instead ate burritos, it would be a sensible business move. However, it's questionable how many people would start eating at McDonald's again, considering their competence is in burgers (if you like McD's burgers), not burritos. Usually, when this happens, the business ends up failing. Trying to belatedly "join the crowd" is probably the best course of action at that point, but it's still usually futile.

    2. Re:It's Like by tripleevenfall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, if you're being paid to run a McDonald's and are just flailing - trying to find any revenue stream at all to keep the store open another week or two... you'll try burritos.

  2. It's a "what year is it?" design. by Stormwatch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Looking at the Classic, I can see clearly why it failed. It's like something from a decade ago. Sure, it's good to have a keyboard, but not at the expense of the screen! They got it right with the Priv and its sliding keyboard, that one is something I'd consider if I were thinking of buying a smartphone now.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
    1. Re: It's a "what year is it?" design. by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Except that a smartphone hides much of that screen space when it pops up a touch sensitive keyboard. The blackberry classic actually looks like it has the same amount of screen space that my phone has when sending email. Basically I can't send email on my phone since it lacks a competent textual input device, a reasonable amount of screen space, find control over cursor placement, and so forth. At least with the Blackberry there's actual tactile feed back that you're on the right key so that you're not relying on a bad spell checker to fix up your typos as much.

  3. Way to become irrelevant by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, no blackberry OS, no blackberry keyboard, the same rectangle screen as everyone else, the same OS as everyone else. So what's left? The pretty logo? Congrats. Another messaging app? Watch me care. Secure? Bullshit of course. So much for pride. Ready for the fall.

  4. Don't really care by neminem · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure, I suppose, as someone who really likes physical keyboards, it's technically sad that we just lost another one, but I don't care that much, on grounds of a. Blackberry OS rather than Android, and b. keyboards should slide out in landscape mode, not portrait mode. So I would never personally buy one of those anyway.

    But when I can no longer find any Android phones with proper slider keyboards to replace my current one when it dies... I will be pretty pissed at that point.