This might seem all too obvious to some folks considering RIM is still releasing OS's for devices such as the Curve 8900 but it's certainly been on the minds of many. The question of whether or not BlackBerry OS 7+ devices will be supported in the long-term now that BlackBerry 10 is soon to be arriving. As noted by BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins on the latest earnings call, we can expect much support for BlackBerry OS 7 yet:
That's great news for those running BlackBerry OS 7+ devices out there and not quite ready to move to BlackBerry 10 for whatever reason. It's also pretty obvious we're still going to be seeing at the very least, one more of those cost effective devices land as well.So just to be very clear, we will not just kind of stop BB7 from being supported. We have a significant R&D team working and continuing to work on BB7. And you just saw us innovating on BB7 as well when we announced the BBM voice capability. So we will maintain BB7. There is a strong success with BB7 devices in the Asia Pac markets. And as you can see on the devices that we’re launching with BB10, you can probably get an idea of in which price points they fit.
So no, we will support those on-boarding, entry-level smartphone markets. We will continue to support them with BlackBerry 7, and you might expect us to even build one of the other new products based on BlackBerry 7. Because for those messaging-oriented markets, it’s an exciting platform and its a really perfect platform.
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Idea Cellular
Rocking a BlackBerry OS 7 device on Idea Cellular in India? Here's something that may be of interest to you, as BlackBerry announced today that it is collaborating with Idea in providing a 1GB data plan to all postpaid customers running a BlackBerry OS 7 device for just Rs. 83 ($1.4) a month, or an annual fee of Rs. 999 ($16.5). The caveat here is that the plan covers 1 GB 2G data....
I switched from BlackBerry 10 to BlackBerry 7 and survived!
As I'm sure most of you already know, last weekend Kevin, James and I headed to Montreal to check out the Canadian Grand Prix — and we had an amazing time. I drove up from New Jersey with a friend of mine, but it wasn't until the day before that it dawned on me that I wouldn't have any phone service once hitting the Canadian border. Since I rarely leave the country I don't carry an...
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 makes a return to ShopBlackBerry in North America
Here's an odd one - The good old BlackBerry Bold 9900 has appeared once again in ShopBlackBerry. Currently the device is available for pre-order only, with shipments expected to be despatched around June 18th. Don't get me wrong - the 9900 was an awesome powerhouse for those of us that wanted the best communication device on the market, but that was a few years back. Where I find...
BlackBerry 9720 press shots surface
We've seen a few hands-on pictures of the upcoming BlackBerry 9720, but just in case those weren't quite clear enough, here are some press pictures that have recently bubbled up. There's an obvious Q5 influence here, and OS 7.1 is looking like it will be borrowing a few things from BB10, There's no carrier branding here, so no hints as to which markets we'll be seeing it in. We talked...