Before TCL took over BlackBerry smartphone production and marketing, the BlackBerry Priv was released running Android Lollipop and will stay on Marshmallow.
The Priv, DTEK50 and DTEK60 will head into 2017 with a new look in some of their apps. BlackBerry has announced updates to its Hub+ apps, Android keyboard, Launcher and Password Keeper that include bugfixes and performance tweaks.
Beyond that, Hub+ apps now keep your cadre of accounts more organized by allowing users to hide some of them and prevent them from syncing data. A default email account can also be set for use from within the Hub. Emails can be prioritized by contacts and shown with the contacts’ avatars besides the message previews. Attachments in the .eml format are now viewable. The Tasks app can now hide completed tasks.
The Android Launcher gets “a sleeker, sexier look” with a dark theme while the keyboard has some new tricks in its same sleeve, including a more responsive switchover to different languages, Stoke and Zhuyin Chinese input and fingerprint support for Password Keeper access (as on the DTEK60). Speaking of the Keeper, there’s now a built-in webview browser, a revised and clarified password font and non-Latin character support.
If you already have these apps and haven’t taken the time to check out updates, you will probably want to do so ASAP.
If you’re still looking for a BlackBerry-made smartphone these days — either because you’re in government, you’re a fan or an archiver — and would like a good price for the experience, consider heading to ShopBlackBerry.com.
Through November 30 at 3am Eastern, you can take advantage of big price cuts on some of the latest and oldest BlackBerry devices, including:
Also note that the new DTEK60 has not gotten a discount for the season — we figured it wouldn’t happen anyways, but you do hear a tiny sigh coming out of us.
It’s not over until… CEO John Chen explicitly says it is. BlackBerry may have issued an official press release a little while back corroborating rampant rumors of the financially struggling Canadian company’s “plans to end all internal hardware development”, but apparently, a very important part of the story was left out.
Namely, Chen’s “promise” to build at least one more “keyboard phone” in-house, which the outspoken executive still intends to uphold. He won’t say exactly when, just that it’s not going to be “that long”, and everything from the market moniker of the device “coming” soon to its design, hardware specifications and software type also stays under wraps.
Mind you, BlackBerry could go one of a few different paths in integrating a physical QWERTY keypad, perhaps following in Priv’s, Passport’s or even Classic’s footsteps. And although Android feels like the most logical platform choice going forward, the security specialist’s proprietary BlackBerry 10 OS is technically not dead yet.
It remains to be seen if maybe the recently leaked DTEK70 design hasn’t been outsourced to TCL after all, and we’re also interested to hear more about the two companies, one from China and the other from India, currently running neck and neck in a race to launch the next BlackBerry-licensed phone.
Oh, and if you’re curious what John Chen thinks of Donald Trump’s “shocking” US election win, there’s roughly 8 minutes of that too in the same Bloomberg interview.
There’s a new major software update officially rolling out over-the-air to the Android-powered BlackBerry Priv on Verizon, but alas, it’s not the fresh, scrumptious Nougat confection Google’s hardware-making and carrying partners should really start supporting one of these days.
Instead, productivity and security-obsessed subscribers to the nation’s largest wireless service provider can barely leave obsolete Lollipops behind now to finally jump on the Marshmallow bandwagon.
It’s hard to understand exactly what took Big Red so much longer to “optimize”, and we don’t even want to think about the operator’s possible Nougat timeline. Commercially released last fall, the AMOLED touchscreen/QWERTY keyboard Snapdragon 808 hybrid device will no doubt qualify for 7.0 system improvements… sooner or later, featuring a plentiful 3GB RAM, 32GB expandable storage, 3,410 mAh battery, 18MP rear camera, and Quad HD display resolution.
BlackBerry’s last in-house-designed phone still costs $408 outright on Verizon, or $425 unlocked through the Canadian OEM’s e-store. October security patches are apparently included in the newest VZW software update, as well as Wi-Fi Calling functionality, Now on Tap cards, runtime permissions, an improved keyboard prediction engine, minor launcher tweaks, advanced camera controls, and DTEK app enhancements.
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