BlackBerry's Keyboard is Coming Back for One Last Dance (bloomberg.com)

BlackBerry has officially stopped making its own phones, but the company has one last treat for die-hard fans: a new phone sporting its trademark physical keyboard. According to Bloomberg: Chief Executive Officer John Chen had hinted at the phone in September, but hadn't confirmed it until Thursday, when he spoke to Emily Chang in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "We have one keyboard phone I promised people," Chen said. "It's coming." Under Chen, BlackBerry has gradually shifted from smartphones to software and said in September it would completely stop producing, stocking and distributing its own phones. Instead, it will license the BlackBerry brand to outside companies to put on phones they build themselves. The physical keyboard is BlackBerry's best-known smartphone feature, with many former users still lamenting its absence as they clumsily tap out e-mails on their iPhones and sign off with words like "pardon the typos."

Comments

Physical interfaces

[fiannaFailMan]

There's something about a physical interface that I just never get with a touch-sensitive screen. I miss the clunk of the keys on the old Macs of the 1980s. I remember being able to text without looking at the phone. I always thought that Star Trek TNG crew members had a raw deal having to tap panels all the time. Even Tom Paris in Voyager complained about it once.

Re:Physical interfaces

[Aereus]

Judging by how haptic technologies are advancing now, I would imagine touchscreens in the future would have the ability to dynamically raise their surfaces to provide a measure of physical feedback.

Re:Physical interfaces

[TeknoHog]

I have a Bluetooth keyboard that I can use w/ any of my phones or tablets

I also got one back in the day, but I now wonder why. A separate keyboard ruins the whole idea of a phone that's always with you as a single, small package. It's also hard to use unless you're sitting down. Nokia got it right with the N900 and its slide keyboard, which BTW is considerably smaller and more "pocketable" than today's thin but wide slabs.

Re:Physical interfaces

[tepples]

How big is it and who made it? BlackBerry owns design patents on keyboards that would be useful with a pocket-sized device, as opposed to a tablet or the like.

It's like Night of the Living Dead

[JoeyRox]

Lifeless gadget zombies from the Blackberry grave keep rising up just to be shot dead in the head again.

Clickbait

[kelemvor4]

Warning: The video at the top of the linked page is political discussion by Chen. They talk about the election, immigration, etc.

I clicked for a video I thought would be about blackberries and their keyboard (that I miss desperately). What I got was a video about some guy complaining about the election and calling himself an immigrant yet expressing fear over the reduction of work visas and expulsion of illegal aliens.

I guess most slashdotters have nothing to worry about. Most don't read the articles anyway.

Re:Shut it down. Turn off the lights already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi!

Blackberry Chief Innovation Officer here. Yeah, we have 3 full time and 8 part time employees. Not only do I innovate (can't you tell), I run the mailroom, mop the floor and I do some Uber pickups when things get slow around the office. That's getting more and more frequent, as you can imagine. You know how a lot of manufacturing companies have big signs that say "This facility has gone X days without a work related injury"? Well, ours says "This facility has gone X weeks without a customer order"

We already turned off the lights. Johnny boy said he can't afford the light bill anymore.

Have a nice weekend!
- Blackberry

Just license the shit out of keyboard patents

[swb]

Since they're not actually going to make phones, why not just license the shit out of their keyboard patents to anyone who wants to make an add-on keyboard widget for smartphones?

Maybe their lawsuit against the Typo keyboard made sense back when they filed it and still had dreams of being a smartphone manufacturer, but at this stage nobody wants to buy Blackberry outright and they're not making any phones. So why not make what they can licensing the patent out?