Oliver Haslam on January 5, 2022, 12:35 am

End Of An Era: BlackBerry OS Smartphones Are Officially Dead As Of Today

Today is January 4, 2022 and it also happens to be the date that BlackBerry smartphones of a certain age stop working. That means that any phone running BlackBerry OS can no longer be used. At all.

We aren’t joking, either. None of these phones will be able to make calls, send messages, receive data, or anything else for that matter.

You won’t be able to make emergency calls either, something that you can normally do on any phone with or without a SIM card installed. As of today, these devices are completely useless.

BlackBerry made the announcement in September of 2020, saying at the time that its products would become end of life (EOL) on today’s date.

As a reminder, the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022. As of this date, 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.

We thank our many loyal customers and partners over the years and invite you to learn more about how BlackBerry provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world.

If you’re still using a BlackBerry — or trying to, at least! — now would be a very good time to fix that. There are tons of smartphones available today and you don’t have to spend big money, either. Go on, treat yourself!