Blackberry Archives - usatoday24

BlackBerry seemed dead and buried. You have no idea how important it still is (but not for your mobile)

May 4, 2026 by usatoday24

Let’s take a little trip back in time. It’s 2014 and we’re in Silicon Valley. An executive named John Wall, president of QNXa division of Blackberry, has just arrived in the world’s technology mecca, fresh from Waterloo, in Ontario (Canada). He goes to a meeting with managers from Audi, one of his company’s best clients. The automotive firm has just announced the arrival of Android Auto to its cars. Meanwhile, Apple he doesn’t stop signing QNX engineers to create their own operating system for cars. Blackerry’s shortcomings continue to grow: after losing in mobile phones, it now also had a really bad time in the infotainment systems business. And then, something happened. A beer. The beer of the resurrection. Audi’s head of engineering went to have a beer with him and confessed that Audi was going to use Google’s infotainment systems. However, he told him, his next generation of cars would still need safety features that didn’t exist yet. So Wall came up with an idea. Instead of trying to control the car’s screen, I would try to conquer the software that is the backbone of that entire experience. “The circumstances that caused us to lose infotainment caused the company to pivot in the right direction, whether we knew it or not at the time,” counted Wall. The truth is that they did not have many alternatives, especially after experiencing one of the most famous boom and bust phenomena in the technology industry. From everything to (almost) nothing. In 2008 BlackBerry I was on top of the world. Its market capitalization at that time reached $83 billion, but from then on it plummeted mainly due to the iPhone. Today its capitalization round the 3,000 million dollars, but the surprise is that its great treasure is an almost mythical software that has turned out to be a success in the automotive world. Its name: QNX. How BlackBerry ended up making car software. In 2010 Research In Motion (RIM)—BlackBerry’s former official name— acquired QNX. This real-time operating system that appeared in the mid-1980s and in the 2000s completely changed its focus to target the automotive industry. When RIM bought it, it tried to take advantage of it for its own operating system, blackberry 10but we already know how that ended. QNX’s other big business. The curious thing is that while the company was sinking in the mobile market, QNX engineers who had not moved to the smartphone team continued working on car software. John Wall, president of QNX, has been with the company since graduating in the early ’90s, and in an interview in The Wall Street Journal he recalled how “no one paid attention to us.” That was precisely what changed the course of the company. A crucial operating system. QNX is the operating system that operates collision alerts, blind spot notifications, adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection or lane correction systems. Not only in cars, be careful: also on motorcycles. It is invisible to the user, who never sees the QNX logo, but certainly sees that everything works. Wall compared his engineers to plumbers and electricians: “What makes QNX virtually irreplaceable is its reputation for never failing.” In Fortune a user commented years earlier how “the only way to make this software fail is to shoot a bullet at the computer running it.” A flourishing business. For years QNX was an overlooked division within an ailing company, but today it accounts for about half of BlackBerry’s total revenue. The software that failed on mobile phones and tablets has ended up being almost the only business that matters for the company, but it has not been limited to cars. QNX is integrated into surgical robots and dozens of medical devices in hospitals around the world. It is also used in industrial plants and automation systems that depend on the security and reliability that QNX provides. It is not without problemsof course, but its software is still key in many critical systems. Prize for being late. BlackBerry was late to the smartphone revolution and lost. It was also late to try to conquer the infotainment segment in the automobile industry and lost. But upon losing that second battle, it adapted and managed to reconvert its operating system into something for which it was precisely designed: a real-time operating system that does not fail and whose latency and response time was (and is) extraordinary. If QNX had continued trying to compete with CarPlay or Android Auto it would probably have disappeared completely, but now it is an absolute benchmark in a niche where its reliability is much more valuable than the flashy new features that infotainment systems usually sell. Today its systems are installed in more than 275 million vehicles. BlackBerry is doing well. BlackBerry shares are up 50% in the latest financial results, and the company has four consecutive quarters in profits. That has caused BlackBerry CEO John Giamatteo to declare that his company “is now a growth story.” These data must be taken with caution, because BlackBerry is very far from where it was almost two decades ago, but the path this company has taken seems the right one. We may not see it compete in the mobility arena anymore, but it has become a fundamental element of an automobile industry that is only doing one thing: growing. In Xataka | There are still those who insist on resurrecting the keyboard and the jack: this is the mobile phone that brings them back with the scent of BlackBerry

This is the mobile phone that brings them back with a BlackBerry scent

January 9, 2026 by usatoday24

From time to time, technology allows itself to doubt itself. In 2026 it does so by recovering elements that many considered amortized, such as the physical keyboard or the headphone jack. It is not a gratuitous gesture nor a simple nostalgic provocation. There are those who believe that we have made too many compromises in the name of screen and simplicity. To understand why this discussion is so striking today, we must go back to 2007, when the original iPhone marked a before and after in the way we understand the smartphone. In that scenario, Steve Jobs was very explicit when marking distances with devices like BlackBerry: “They all have keyboards that are there, regardless of whether you need them or not. And they all have fixed plastic control buttons, the same for any application.” The touch screen was not just a technical novelty, but a way to free up space and adapt the interface to each use. The screen won. Beyond the design, the triumph of the on-screen keyboard has to do with the daily experience. It does not require you to reserve a fixed space, it adapts to the language, the context and the type of text, and it has proven to be surprisingly effective. Even intensive users have ended up writing quickly on a touch surface, supported by automatic corrections and increasingly refined suggestions. The keyboard returns to the center of the design. In the case of Clicks Communicatorthe keyboard is not an addition or an accessory, but rather the starting point of the device. The company has opted for an Android phone with an integrated physical keyboard, accompanied by a 4.03-inch AMOLED screen designed to complement, not replace, writing. The terminal executes Android 16 and is supported by a functional technical sheet, with a 4,000 mAh battery, 50 MP main camera with optical stabilization, expandable storage via microSD and increasingly less common details such as the 3.5 mm jack. Clicks Communicator Beyond the hardware, Clicks tries to differentiate the Communicator by the way it is interacted with on a daily basis. The physical keyboard incorporates touch sensitivity to scroll through messages or pages without lifting your fingers, while a side button allows you to convert speech to text, start recordings or transcribe meetings. Added to this is a visual notification system using a configurable LED and a “message hub” that groups conversations from different applications on the same screen. The company itself frames it with a clear idea: “Designed to do things, not to surf the Internet.” Clicks Communicator The reversible option. Before launching its own phone, Clicks became known for its Clicks Keyboard Casea case that adds a physical QWERTY keyboard to the bottom of the phone, BlackBerry style. The idea is simple: keep your usual smartphone and add a keyboard when you need it, without making it a final decision. This case connects via USB-C, or Lightning in older models, and is available for several iPhones, including the iPhone 17 Pro, as well as some Androids such as the Google Pixel and the Motorola Razr. Clicks Keyboard Case (left), Clicks Power Keyboard (right) The third piece in the catalog aims at an intermediate point between both proposals. Clicks Power Keyboard It is a magnetic accessory presented at CES 2026 that adheres to the back of the phone and deploys only when you need to write. Unlike the traditional case, it does not replace the case nor is it permanently fixed. In addition, it works as a 2,150 mAh external battery and is compatible with MagSafe and Qi2, which extends its reach to a wide variety of iPhones and Android phones. Pros and cons. In the end, Clicks’ approach puts a very clear exchange on the table. Bringing back the physical keyboard means accepting smaller screens. Magnetic cases and keyboards allow you to explore that idea without definitive commitments, while the Communicator requires a more conscious commitment to another way of using your mobile. Price and availability. The Clicks Communicator can now be reserved with a promotional price of $399, compared to the usual $499, as long as the reservation is formalized before February 27. The company plans to begin shipments later this year, without a specific date for now. Spain is among the countries included in the European deployment, although the definitive deadlines will be specified when production enters its final phase. Images | Clicks In Xataka | Expensive and premium mobile phones are not a fad: they are the new standard, and Motorola knows it

Apple and its apparent indifference to the AI revolution reminds us of one thing: the Blackberry fall

May 26, 2025 by usatoday24

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, and everyone is turning not to lose that train. Well, everyone doesn’t. Apple seems not to be especially interested in AI nor is it overlapping like the rest of its rivals. The question is whether that can be your definitive conviction. Wwdc sin (barely) ia. Last week the Microsoft Build and Google I/O conferences were held. In both the focus for AI was absolute. On June 9 Apple will celebrate its WWDC, and All rumors They point out that there will be hardly any news in Apple’s proposals. Instead, the company is expected to talk about the redesign of its operating systems, a project with a “Solarium” code name. Apple keeps losing trains. Apple’s apparent indifference attitude with the field of artificial intelligence is undoubtedly surprising. It is one of the most important technological companies in the world, but still does not react as one would expect from it and Keep losing trains. While the competition reacted quickly developing its own models or reaching agreements and investments with startups such as OpenAi, Apple still did not pay special attention, at least for the gallery. And what he has is disappointing. The company already dedicates thousands of millions of dollars to catch up, but when he finally presented his platform Apple Intelligence The result turned out to be disappointing. Very limited and strenuously slowly In its deployment, caution It is starting to take its toll. Not economically, but reputationally. It is not that this disappointment is pending among external analysts: it is that Even their own employees believe that Apple is behind In ia. The disaster Siri. We have seen it especially with Siri, a voice assistant who was supposed to win many integers thanks to AI but still in the development phase. The promises they made last year have not been fulfilled, and recognized analysts such as John Gruber described the conceptual videos that Apple used as “shit.” Siri’s delay, already confirmed by Appleis the definitive proof that the company is in a worrying situation in this segment. Source: Sherwood News. Remembering Blackberry. When we talk about the reputational crisis From Apple we already made an increasingly striking analogy: that of Blackberry. The company, which dominated the world of mobility with Nokia in the first decade of the 2000s, did not react to the announcement of the iPhone. He was surprisingly indifferent, and the curious thing is that the impact of the iPhone took to notice. In fact, Blackberry sales continued to grow and reached its peak in 2011. From that moment on, fallen into dive. Today the company is a shadow of what it was. Apple annual income. Has the company touched roof? Source: Backlinko. Apple is doing very well (for now). On paper things are going very well for Apple. The company has not seemed to notice the impact of the arrival of Chatgpt, and global sales continue to go up. There is signs of concern, because its star product, the iPhone, It seems to have touched roof. Now in fact the growth is much more modest (2% in 2024) and its Silent transformationalthough effective, seems to confirm that Apple is unable to innovate. Even they have made it clear that They no longer look for the next iPhone. The disruptions, it seems, are overvalued. Apple lives in the past. But as they point out In BloombergApple is living in a “legacy” world, depending on products and services that work it, but do not seem to look at the future. The agreement between Jony Ive and Sam Altman to develop an AI hardware product is another sign that may worry: the company that previously excited and which we expected a disruption was Apple. Now we see others like OpenAi or Google. An increasingly criticized tim cook. That apparent inability to react is making Tim Cook’s succession seem to press. In The Wall Street Journal summary The situation of the Apple CEO, to which the problems accumulate and that continues to focus its strategy on the inertia of the iPhone. But that inertia is not eternal: Eddy Cue, senior executive of the company, testified in the US judicial case against Apple this month and said something unique: “You may not need an iPhone within 10 years, although it sounds like madness.” An opportunity. Apple has been presuming for its commitment to privacy for years, and that was precisely the clear Apple Intelligence approach when they presented it. His promise was that of a more private AI, which we could also execute partially – without need of the cloud – and that would still be as capable as the rest. At the moment, Apple Intelligence benefits are far from competitors, but if Apple manages to catch up at the capacity of their AI and also manage to maintain their privacy promise will have something that competitors in effect do not have. Or two. But we are talking about Apple, a famous company to be late for the revolutions and then win. It should not be ruled out of course in the AI segment, but there may also be new options in the field of hardware. That’s where The connected glasses They can be another accessory Very interesting For a firm that is expected to reinforce its “iPhone ecosystem” with this wearable, and the latest data They point to it. In Xataka | The succession of Tim Cook (I): This is the legacy that Apple’s CEO will leave

The boom and fall of Blackberry, the status symbol that the iPhone turned into history

February 6, 2025 by usatoday24

Before the absolute domain of the format imposed by smartphones with any screen without space for the keys, in half the world who left the cod was nokia. In the other half was Blackberry. Its mobile phones, with a reliable QWERTY keyboard and technology to the last, were synonym for quality, even status. Not only public figures had a Blackberry, but their use in business environments was practically mandatory at certain levels, and the company got that His models were desired by the general public. In that area, they had a very special model: the Blackberry Pearl 8100. It was something similar to what is currently happening with the iPhone, but beyond ‘Fardar’, having a Blackberry allowed access to a free instant messaging service among its users. At a time when SMS kept costing money (unless they were included in the rate) and were not as immediate as a chat, Blackberry Messenger It was consolidated as a kind of Microsoft Messenger to talk to friends and family. In 2009, everyone wanted to have a Blackberry mobile and dominated the market with almost 21% share. However, nothing lasts forever and, as soon as the iPhone and the Android mobiles They began to popular, the company’s sales fell into dive. The reason for his success was that physical keyboard that had stopped making sense and to which the brand He wanted to cling without successeven testing hybrid alternatives and Systems like Blackberry 10 To compete against Android. Spoiler: They did not set. And that is only a tip of the Blackberry iceberg, a story that my partner Ana Boria tells perfectly in the video we leave to lead this article, with the perfect storm that led to the loud fall of the mythical Blackberry. And it is curious because, many years later and already in 2025, there are users who continue to remember the fantastic times of that innovative Blackberry and, especially its keyboard and touchpad with those who differentiated themselves from the competition. From outside, as someone who never had a Blackberry, I can only say that it is even sorry for the story of a company that, obviously, was buried by a progress that did not see coming and who did not know how to adapt. Although … well, it’s not like so many other companies that disappeared without a trace. Although their attempts to return to the mobile segment did not work, at least they managed to reinvent themselves in other fields. AND It seems that nothing is going to him. In Xataka | Commodore boom and fall, the giant of the 1980s who revolutionized computer science and fell into oblivion

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