How the iPhone killed Blackberry (and why it didn't have to happen) (2024)
If you happen to be reading this story on a Blackberry phone, your device is officially obsolete. The company has announced that BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 will no longer be available after today, and warns that “devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality.”
The end comes almost exactly 15 years after Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco—and back on January 7, 2007, few people would have believed that Blackberry would suffer such a fate. At the time, Blackberry was one of the leading names in smartphones and approaching 10 percent market share, a number that would grow to 20 percent just a couple of years later.
But like every other company that failed to adapt to the iPhone’s sea change, Blackberry never evolved. Even the Key2, which was based on Android and had a touchscreen (and also is no longer supported), stubbornly stuck to its tiny physical keyboard, which was once the handset’s trademark feature, so much so that it was one of the main reasons why then-parent company Research In Motion paid little mind to Apple’s iPhone.
“It wasn’t a threat to RIM’s core business,” said Mr. Lazaridis’s top lieutenant, Larry Conlee, according to an excerpt from the 2015 book, “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.” “It wasn’t secure. It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.”
Of course, all of those things would either be fixed or forgotten as the iPhone gained in popularity. The iPhone’s versatility, design, and camera continued to outpace anything Blackberry released, and within five years, market share had completely eroded as people flocked to phones with digital keyboards. Blackberry never responded to the threat and the rest is history.
It didn’t need to be that way. Blackberry was popular for a reason. It excelled at email and messaging long before the iPhone did, and it could have leaned into what it did best while also giving people what they wanted. But instead they stuck to their keyboard guns while the iPhone and Android phones passed it by.
The iPhone beat Blackberry by charting its own path. Steve Jobs may have called out Blackberry on the stage for its rigid structure and “baby internet,” but the iPhone wasn’t a response to anything RIM made. It was its own thing, which is partially why its competitors ignored it until it was too late. Blackberry hastily assembled a response with its own lousy digital keyboard in late 2008 after the iPhone was clearly making headway. Here’s an excerpt from PCWorld’s review:
“Typing on the Storm isn’t much fun, either. You have to click the screen keyboard for each keystroke (the keys flash blue under your fingertips as you click), which ends up feeling like a lot of work in a way that typing on a hardware keyboard (or on the iPhone’s software keyboard, for that matter) never did. I worry, too, about how well the mechanics of the click screen will hold up under the pressure of continual use by heavy typers.”
Blackberry
But Blackberry’s demise doesn’t fall on the shoulders of one phone. Blackberry might not have been able to beat the iPhone or Android, but its biggest failing was a failure to recognize a serious competitor, a mistake that likely won’t be repeated anytime soon. As we’ve seen with the Apple Watch, AirPods, and iPad, companies are much quicker to recognize and respond to Apple’s moves, and we’ll likely see a quick shift from Oculus (Meta) and Vive when Apple launches its AR/VR headset later this year.
Blackberry’s demise is also a lesson for Apple. It may be the world’s first and only $3 trillion company, but no lead is safe in the world of tech, even with a stable of products as successful as Apple’s. Siri is a perfect example—Apple was way out in front until Amazon and Google did it better. As Apple prepares to enter what could be several new product categories, it needs to understand both what it can add and what its competitors do right.
Today, Blackberry may be easy to point at and laugh at. But Apple would be wise to learn from the mistakes Blackberry made. Blackberry could have been a prominent name in smartphones even today had it heeded the iPhone’s warning. Just like the iPhone, there will be threats to Apple’s dominance, and it will only survive by recognizing the real ones and not being too stubborn to pivot.
The iPhone beat Blackberry by charting its own path. Steve Jobs may have called out Blackberry on the stage for its rigid structure and “baby internet,” but the iPhone wasn't a response to anything RIM made. It was its own thing, which is partially why its competitors ignored it until it was too late.
Why Did BlackBerry Smartphones Fail? Competition, in a nutshell. The introduction of the Apple iPhone, which BlackBerry didn't take seriously, caused a loss of market share that BlackBerry couldn't recover from. More competitors entered the smartphone space, eventually crowding BlackBerry out.
The iPhone led to BlackBerry's waning influence, but even after ceasing in-house design of the BlackBerry, the phones were still licensed to other markets, including an Indonesian company, which set up a joint venture that would make, distribute, and market BlackBerry phones.
The iPhone didn't look like a threat to the company's core business. “It wasn't secure,” COO Larry Conlee told the book's authors. “It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.”
A series of issues, including a sluggish and unresponsive touchscreen, hardware problems, and software bugs and glitches, plagued the phone, leading to a wave of criticism. The company went into damage control mode, releasing firmware updates in an attempt to address the problems.
While Apple and Android's operating systems improved over time, with engineers implementing changes that were lacking in previous iterations of their tech, BlackBerry made only minor adjustments that didn't live up to consumer expectations. Over time, they lost subscribers and their shares tumbled downhill.
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A direct comparison between the iPhone and the Blackberry suggests that people who mostly use media features and find battery life important should stick with the iPhone, while those who need a physical keyboard and management features should stick with the Blackberry.
They could have: 1. Been willing to embrace new hardware formats. Although the full QWERTY keyboard had become a key function of Blackberry's market uniqueness, the point stands that the company waited far too long to release a touch screen device.
BlackBerry. Founded in 1984, BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) was one of the leaders in advanced phone space, releasing the BlackBerry 850 in 1999, which had email capability. In 2006, before the unveiling of the first ever iPhone, BlackBerry released its Pearl device.
Do BlackBerry phones still exist in 2023? BlackBerry has not released a new phone since 2018, with the company discontinuing its software services for any non-Android models in 2022.
After the release of the iPhone 4, Apple's phone sales passed BlackBerry's for good. By the time BlackBerry's technology began to catch up, it was out of fashion. Working professionals, one of BlackBerry's core customer bases, began to make the switch to iPhones and Androids.
Yep both got their strong points, BlackBerry is an highly secure productivity machine but isn't that great for entertainment while iPhone is equally secure (although the locked down approach does take away some productivity) and is bit of both entertainment and productive device but isn't an enterprise level ...
In addition to the news that Fairfax Financial is set to purchase BlackBerry, the company has also announced that the set roll out of BBM to iOS and Android will no longer happen.
The BlackBerry Storm is a touchscreen smartphone developed by Research In Motion. A part of the BlackBerry 9500 series of phones, it was RIM's first touchscreen device, and its first without a physical keyboard.
At its peak in September 2011, there were 85 million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide. However, BlackBerry lost its dominant position in the market due to the success of the Android and iOS platforms; its numbers had fallen to 23 million in March 2016, a decline of almost three-quarters.
Nokia and BlackBerry failed to adapt to the dynamic nature of the market. They were too complacent, too stubborn, and too slow to respond to the changing needs and preferences of their customers.
Today, BlackBerry has successfully transitioned into a cybersecurity company, specializing in encryption-based services for various industries, including medical and automotive. They've come a long way from their early days as a smartphone manufacturer.
First, after growing to dominate the corporate market, BlackBerry failed to anticipate that consumers — not business customers — would drive the smartphone revolution. Second, BlackBerry was blindsided by the emergence of the “app economy,” which drove massive adoption of iPhone and Android-based devices.
Introduction: My name is Terence Hammes MD, I am a inexpensive, energetic, jolly, faithful, cheerful, proud, rich person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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