Friday, September 25, 2015

BlackBerry formally confirms Priv name, launch scheduled for later this year

The BlackBerry Venice Android slider had leaked so many times, in so many different ways, over the course of the summer, that by now little has felt left to work out beyond the phone’s final launch details. Earlier this week we started getting a sense of how that might come together, beginning with a formal name for the phone, as the label “BlackBerry Priv” found itself the subject of the latest rumors.




 Now BlackBerry itself has confirmed that very same Priv name, during the company’s latest quarterly earnings statement.

CEO John Chen confirms that BlackBerry, “will launch a flagship slider device, Priv, which will run on the Android operating system, bringing together the best of BlackBerry security and productivity with the expansive mobile application ecosystem available on the Android platform.”


As for a release schedule, we still don’t have any hard dates, but the company confirms that Priv will be “available late in the calendar year in major markets in-store and online,” while promising that it will help flesh that picture out a bit as it releases additional launch details in the weeks to come. That may fit with previous rumors we’ve heard of November availability.


Source: BlackBerry (PDF)
Via: The Verge, pocketnow

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