BlackBerry’s 5G phone from OnwardMobility has reportedly been cancelled

According to new damning reports, BlackBerry’s highly anticipated 5G phone has already been cancelled, with OnwardMobility losing the rights to the BlackBerry name. 

Once touted as a return to the glory days of physical keyboards and device security, it seems BlackBerry’s dreams of dominating the phone market are dead. Again.

First planned to launch in the first half of 2021, BlackBerry’s 5G phone was quietly delayed and pushed back a number of times, with news being sparse enough that OnwardMobility eventually had to do their best Mark Twain impression to claim “contrary to popular belief, we are not dead.”

While OnwardMobility may not have been dead in January, it seems that they definitely are now, with a pair of new reports suggesting that things have gone from bad to worse at the small Austin-based company.

In a recent report from CrackBerry, multiple sources told founder Kevin Michaluk that “OnwardMobility and their BlackBerry 5G keyboard phone dream are dead,” which sounds pretty definitive to us. 

Similarly, Android Police corroborated these reports, while also claiming that OnwardMobility has lost the licence to use the BlackBerry name. According to Android Police’s sources, BlackBerry is planning to distance itself from being a smartphone manufacturer, so we may never be getting another phone from the former giant. 

For those eagerly awaiting the next generation of BlackBerry phones, there is still a glimmer of hope you can cling onto, as OnwardMobility have yet to confirm that these rumours are true themselves.