BlackBerry 10
The reboot that arrived in 2013 and was switched off in 2022
BlackBerry 10 was the ground-up rewrite of BlackBerry's phone software, built on QNX and launched with the Z10 and Q10 on 30 January 2013, the day Research In Motion renamed itself BlackBerry. Well reviewed and years late, it never rebuilt the company's share, which fell below one percent by 2016 as BlackBerry switched its hardware to Android. Legacy services were shut off on 4 January 2022, leaving BB10 phones unable to reliably call, text or connect.
Timeline [edit]
- 2010
-
9 April 2010
Acquisition
RIM buys QNX
The real-time operating system that BlackBerry 10 will be built on.
- 2011
-
6 December 2011
Rebrand
BBX becomes BlackBerry 10
A trademark dispute forces the name change; the launch slips into 2013.
- 2013
-
30 January 2013
Launch
BlackBerry 10 launches with the Z10 and Q10
Research In Motion renames itself BlackBerry the same day.
-
October 2013
Feature
Version 10.2 adds an Android runtime
Android apps run on BB10, a concession about the app gap.
- 2014
-
24 September 2014
Version
Version 10.3 and the Passport
The Amazon Appstore arrives on the square-screened Passport.
- 2015
-
6 November 2015
Decline
The Priv ships on Android
BlackBerry's new flagship does not run BlackBerry 10.
- 2016
-
28 September 2016
Decline
BlackBerry stops making phones
Hardware is licensed out; BB10 gets its last major update, 10.3.3.
- 2020
-
9 September 2020
Shutdown announced
End of life is set
Legacy services will end on 4 January 2022.
- 2022
-
4 January 2022
Shutdown
Legacy services end
BB10 phones can no longer reliably call, text or use data.
How it looked [edit]
The site through time
Browse blackberry.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:
Ownership [edit]
Key figures [edit]
| Metric | Value | As of | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market share (%) | 0.05 | 31 December 2016 | Estimated Gartner's estimate for BlackBerry OS across all versions in the fourth quarter of 2016, reported as effectively zero |
Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate
Why it shut down [edit]
Official line: BlackBerry 10 never won back the users the company had lost to iPhone and Android; by late 2016 BlackBerry's share of smartphone sales had fallen to a rounding error and the company stopped designing its own phones, moving to Android. On 9 September 2020 BlackBerry announced that legacy services for BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry OS and the PlayBook would end on 4 January 2022. After that date the phones could no longer reliably make calls, send texts or use data.
Our analysis: BB10 was a genuinely good operating system delivered about two years after it could have mattered. Reviewers liked the gestures and the Hub, but by 2013 the argument had moved from the OS to the app catalogue, and an Android runtime bolted on later only underlined what was missing. Enterprises that had kept BlackBerry alive were already letting staff bring iPhones. The remarkable part is the ending: a phone OS that stopped working on a date, because the services behind it were turned off.
History [edit]
The rewrite
By 2010 the BlackBerry was still selling but its software was a decade old, and Research In Motion bought QNX Software Systems to build a modern replacement. The result, first shown as BBX and renamed BlackBerry 10 after a trademark dispute in late 2011, slipped from 2012 into 2013 while the company's share collapsed. It finally launched on 30 January 2013 at an event in New York where RIM also announced it was changing its name to BlackBerry.
The launch phones were the all-touch Z10 and the keyboard Q10, and the software drew respect: a gesture-driven interface with no home button, the BlackBerry Hub that gathered every message and notification into one place, a "peek" gesture to glance at it from any app, and a keyboard that predicted words above the keys. Reviewers called it better than expected and, almost unanimously, late.
Late
The problem was the app catalogue. BB10 launched without Instagram, Netflix or most banking apps, and BlackBerry's answer, an Android runtime added in version 10.2 in late 2013 and the Amazon Appstore in 10.3 in 2014, meant running second-class versions of apps written for the rival platform. Enterprises, the last loyal market, were letting employees choose their own phones by then. The Passport in 2014, with its square screen, and the Classic, which brought back the trackpad, sold to the faithful and few others.
In November 2015 BlackBerry shipped the Priv, an Android phone, and on 28 September 2016 it announced it would stop designing hardware altogether. BlackBerry 10 received its last major update, 10.3.3, that year. By the final quarter of 2016 the analysts had BlackBerry's share of smartphone sales at effectively zero.
The switch-off
BlackBerry promised support "for at least two more years" in 2017 and again in 2019, but on 9 September 2020 it set the date: legacy services for BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry OS 7.1 and earlier, and the PlayBook would end on 4 January 2022. When the day came, the phones did not brick, but they could no longer be relied on for calls, texts, data or even emergency calls, and the last BB10 holdouts moved on. BlackBerry itself lives on as a security software company that no longer makes phones.
The domain today
blackberry.com belongs to the software company, which keeps an end-of-life page explaining what stopped working on 4 January 2022. The BlackBerry phone brand was licensed to other manufacturers for Android handsets and has been dormant since 2022.
Similar projects
BlackBerry OS
The keyboard that ran the world
1999–2022
Windows Phone
The tiles nobody wrote apps for
2010–2019
Palm OS
The organiser in your pocket that taught phones to be computers
1996–2009
Symbian
Ran most of the world's smartphones, then burned with the platform
1998–2014
Windows Mobile
A tiny Windows with a Start button, reset to zero by its own maker
2000–2012
Firefox OS
The web as an operating system, aimed at $25 phones
2013–2016
Sources [edit]
- BlackBerry Z10 review The Verge 30 January 2013 [archived]
- Review: BlackBerry 10 is better (much better) late than never Ars Technica 4 February 2013 [archived]
- BlackBerry admits dying BB10 is in pain The Register 20 March 2017 [archived]
- BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS Services FAQ: End of Life BlackBerry 9 September 2020 [archived]
- BlackBerry phones will stop working Tuesday NPR 3 January 2022 [archived]
Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).