BlackBerry to End Support for BB10 Devices in 2019

BlackBerry stopped manufacturing BBOS devices roughly two years ago and has since adopted the Android OS as their preferred mobile OS. However, according to the Canadian company, BB10 still has a good number, even millions of active users, and as a result, they’ll offer 2 more years of support for the BB10 and BBOS platforms to reward these users for their continuing loyalty to the force. Whilst they’ll keep supporting BBOS devices for 2 extra years, BlackBerry mentioned in a blog post that they will be ending auxiliary services like the BlackBerry Travel site (February 2018), and the Playbook video calling service (March 2018) next year. The BlackBerry World app store will be available up until 31^st December 2019, after which it’ll be laid to rest and users will be unable to update or download apps. Hence, BlackBerry is advising current BBOS device users to switch to an Android-powered BlackBerry device like the new BlackBerry KeyOne or BlackBerry Motion, and enjoy the rich app content available in the Google Play store, and also gratify their desire for a physical keyboard. The company also announced that they will no longer deliver monthly security updates for the BlackBerry PRIV which was launched 2 years ago. But this, however, will not make the device any less secure as BlackBerry claim that their Android devices come with a ton of inbuilt security optimizations and as a result are the world’s most secure Android phones. PRIV users will still get security patches for any critical vulnerability that may be realized in the course of time.