BlackBerry will stop making its Classic phone
The retro phone failed to help return BlackBerry to its glory days as a leader in mobile.
The BlackBerry Classic was a throwback to what once made the company popular, offering a physical keyboard in an age of touchscreen smartphones.
Beleaguered phone maker BlackBerry said Tuesday it will stop manufacturing its BlackBerry Classic phone just 18 months after it launched.
While the phone was clearly designed for BlackBerry's existing base of customers, the company hoped to bring in new users, touting the physical keyboard, messaging hub and longer battery life as attractive features. The phone uses the company's own BlackBerry 10 operating system, instead of Google's far more popular Android platform, which BlackBerry has started using in other phones.
However, the Classic never caught on with customers.
"To keep innovating and advancing our portfolio, we are updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices," Ralph Pini, the company's chief operating officer and general manager for devices, said in a blog post Tuesday. "As part of this, and after many successful years in the market, we will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic."
He said that company will continue to support the BlackBerry 10 software and is committed to the success of both its BlackBerry 10 and Android devices.