BlackBerry Not Ready To Give Up On Making Handsets That Run On Its OS Just Yet

Image courtesy of ThePatronSaint

After BlackBerry announced it would be pulling the plug on its BlackBerry Classic smartphone, its last device to use a physical keyboard, the news was greeted with sadness by some and shrugs by others. Either way, BlackBerry says it’s not necessarily done making handsets that run on its proprietary operating system just yet.

The company isn’t saying never to the idea of making another piece of hardware that would run on BB10, despite the fact that it’s moving onto Android-based smartphones.

Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard says rumors that the company is abandoning its keyboard and BB10 are both untrue.

“We are absolutely not backing away from BB10,” Beard told Bloomberg News. “The company’s never said that we would not build another BB10 device.”

BlackBerry started making phones that run on Android last year because developers have stopped making apps that run on BB10. At the time, BlackBerry’s Chief Executive Officer John Chen said BB10 would continue on for the most security-conscious customers, but eventually the BlackBerry version of Android would be secure enough to push out BB10 entirely, if needed.

The announcement for the company’s next handset, which will be Android-based, is “very, very imminent,” Beard told Bloomberg, without disclosing any other details about the device.

In the meantime, if you still want a phone that runs on BB10, you’ve got two choices: the BlackBerry Leap or BlackBerry Passport.

BlackBerry Won’t Rule Out New Phone Running on its BB10 System [Bloomberg]

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