OnwardMobility still doesn’t have any update on its BlackBerry phone

U.S.-based mobile security company OnwardMobility has still not provided an update on its promised BlackBerry-branded phone.

As PCMag notes, OnwardMobility said the handset would launch sometime in 2021, a window that will have passed in just under six weeks. The phone was originally unveiled in August 2020 for a release in the “first half of 2021,” with BlackBerry at the time saying it was “thrilled” to partner with the Texas-based company.

However, there’s since been no update. In a new statement to PCMag, an OnwardMobility spokesperson said the company is “unable to share more details or conduct any interviews.”

Given the silence, it doesn’t seem like we’ll get any form of update on the phone in the next six weeks, much less an actual release. Since OnwardMobility is keeping mum on the matter, it’s also unclear what sorts of issues the phone might have run into.

All we have to go off is that the phone — assuming it still exists — was to be a 5G Android handset that sports a physical keyboard.

The OnwardMobility BlackBerry phone was particularly notable since China-based TCL announced stopped selling BlackBerry-branded devices last year and that it lost the rights to design or manufacture new ones. Therefore, OnwardMobility’s device was positioned as an alternative for fans of the Canadian phone brand.

Otherwise, the last BlackBerry device to be released in North America was the BlackBerry Key2 LE.

Source: PCMag