BlackBerry, one of the most popular phone brands of the era before smartphones took over, has just made a new announcement. The company is finally ending its official support for all of its classic smartphone models.

The Canadian phone brand made the announcement earlier this week (Via 9To5Mac). So now, all of the company’s classic smartphones that run BlackBerry OS or BB10 OS will no longer be supported. Furthermore, the brand has even warned its customers that they will no longer receive any patches to ensure that the carrier or WiFi connection remains functional. In other words, BlackBerry smartphone users might lose calling, cellular data, SMS, and emergency service call functionality.

Although, the same does not apply to the company’s smartphone models that run the Android operating system right now, with official support for these models ending on 4th January 2022. For those unaware, the company was one of the largest brands in the market before the entry of iPhones and before Android smartphones took over the world.

Initially, veteran brands like Nokia and BlackBerry didn’t believe that a full touchscreen phone would ever have a great impact on the market. But as we can see now, devices with physical keyboards have more or less been phased out completely. So with the end of the official support for BB smartphones, we can say that this marks an end of an era. Notably, we advise that users of BB devices back up all of their data as well, and also possibly prepare to shift to another brand soon.

RELATED:

• Onward Mobility announces “Pre commitment Program” ahead of its first BlackBerry phone
• OnwardMobility, the new BlackBerry licensee, plans to bring BlackBerry phones to Asia
• BlackBerry to power Baidu’s mapping technology used in Chinese EVs

The post BlackBerry has officially ended support for all of its classic smartphones appeared first on Gizmochina.

Windows Mobile OS is almost dead in China! That is the damning verdict contained on Kantar WorldPanel’s latest analysis of the mobile OS market. The latest report confirms what we are already getting accustomed to, which is that the world is moving towards a two mobile OS zone controlled entirely by Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS. All other mobile OS as we know them are dying off gradually.

Worse hit is the Microsoft Windows OS which lost ground even in some of its stronghold. Windows OS slipped to a miserly 1.3% in the US, dropping 50% from its position last year. Italy used to be one of Windows OS’ strongest market but it dropped from its market shares last year which stood at 7.2% to 4.4% presently. Talking about China, one of the world’s largest mobile phone market, Windows Mobile OS recorded 0.1% total sales in the last three months, according to Kantar. This leaves no room for doubt that Windows for mobile is as good as dead in China. Microsoft’s Lumia phones were the main users of the Windows Mobile OS but since the demise of the brand, usage on phones has dropped drastically in China and elsewhere.

Whereas Windows Mobile is dying, Google and Apple continues to dominate the terrain with the Android OS credited with 56.4% of smartphone sales in the US where it lost 1.8% of its share of the market to the iOS. Apple’s iOS accounts for 42% of the US smartphone market rising up by 2.9% from last year. In Europe’s largest markets, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, Google’s Android phones accounted for 74.3% of smartphone sales in the latest period, recording a slight 1.4% increase from this same period last year.Apple’s iOS on the other hand, held a 22.7% share, with iPhone 7 remaining the top-selling device in Great Britain, France, and Germany.

Related: Google Executive Might Have Leaked Next Android Version Name

The dominance is also rampant in the Asian market, including where Android clearly dominates. Perhaps, a clear demonstration of this dominance is the latest Blackberry and Nokia launch which saw both companies going for the Android operating system instead of their own OS. As it stands, there is no likelihood that this dominance would end in the near future but the good thing is that we are getting the best out of Android and iOS at the moment. Things just keep on getting better ad better with each new update and we hope for more.

(source)

The post Windows Phone Is As Good As Dead in China while Android & iOS Continue to Soar appeared first on Gizmochina.