With the newest iPhone now in folks’s arms and Google’s annual Android flagship not far behind, it is a pertinent time to launch a movie concerning the as soon as iconic system that paved the way in which for each.

BlackBerry hasn’t appeared alongside them on store cabinets for years, and any remaining gadgets have been successfully killed off final January when the corporate behind them ceased help.

It was an undignified finish for a gadget that modified the world, one which turned not simply ubiquitous with boardrooms and places of work (together with a sure oval-shaped one), however a real vogue assertion.

Thrusting it again into the highlight in 2023 is director Matt Johnson, who hails not removed from BlackBerry’s Ontario HQ.

And but, in opposition to all odds, he says he has no historical past with the world’s first smartphone in any respect.

“The timeline of the product was one of the main things I was interested in,” the 37-year-old says.

“A movie concerning the late 90s/early 2000s shift from a extra analogue world to a extra digital world.

“That’s when I was quite young and a great opportunity to explore that cultural space, all where I grew up.”

‘Hacker-style’ nerds who modified the world

BlackBerry (the movie, not the product) picks up in 1996 at tech agency Research In Motion.

At the time, its ragtag crew of engineers are unaware they’re engaged on maybe their nation’s most well-known export since maple syrup.

Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and pal Douglas Fregin (Johnson) suspect their “PocketLink” concept for a telephone that does e mail is nice, however lack the enterprise sense to show idea into actuality.

Johnson says they have been desirous about fixing sensible issues, however had “no vision of a cultural revolution”.

Enter the ruthless and opportunistic Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who sees sufficient potential within the pitch to brute pressure his method into changing into co-CEO and arrange a pitch with the US telecoms large that may turn out to be Verizon.

The movie, primarily based on the e-book Losing The Signal, takes some liberties with the BlackBerry story – and the actual gamers concerned have stated some portrayals are nearer to satire.

Balsillie’s depicted as a hilariously foul-mouthed demon of the boardroom, whereas Lazaridis and Fregin lead a workforce of “almost hacker-style” nerds who love video video games and workplace movie nights.

What the movie undoubtedly nails is the BlackBerry model’s ascendancy to stardom.

Cracking the market

The first system in 1999 had e mail and two-way paging, with a keyboard and modest monochrome show.

By 2002, calls, texts, and web looking have been options of an more and more in style product with enterprise sorts.

But the game-changing launch of BlackBerry Messenger in 2005 took it actually mainstream, bringing WhatsApp-style encrypted messaging we now all take with no consideration.

The world’s habit to typing on the go noticed “CrackBerry” named Webster’s Dictionary’s phrase of 2006.

It was the telephone of alternative for hundreds of thousands of individuals, endorsed by celebrities and even the US president.

At its peak, BlackBerry managed virtually half of the worldwide smartphone market.

Apple makes its transfer

But 2007 heralded the iPhone – and the world can be about to vary yet again.

Steve Jobs ruthlessly mocked the BlackBerry’s reliance on a keyboard through the grand unveiling, as observers swooned over the massive multitouch show in his hand.

For many analysts, it marked the start of the top for BlackBerry.

For Johnson, it wasn’t essentially the iPhone itself that killed the BlackBerry – however its creators’ response to it.

It noticed the corporate rapidly assemble a Frankenstein-like competitor which tried to mix a touchscreen with the satisfying clicks of a bodily keyboard.

“It’s a keyboard… on a screen… on a keyboard,” is how Baruchel’s Lazaridis pitches it to his engineers, tragically unconvincingly.

The ensuing BlackBerry Storm, launched in 2008, was a catastrophe.

Issues with the brand new touchscreen, which had one monumental button beneath, noticed Verizon have to switch all a million gadgets it offered and declare $500m in losses.

‘How do you do, fellow children?’

It put the Canadian firm on the again foot, and left its executives grappling with an identification disaster as Apple’s trendsetter went from power to power.

BlackBerry nonetheless had its loyal customers, with one Barack Obama amongst these fortunately utilizing them for years after.

The firm even welcomed Queen Elizabeth II for a go to to its headquarters in 2010.

But by then it was clear the corporate’s route had turn out to be muddled, and the plenty and telephone carriers have been batting their eyelids within the iPhone’s route.

BlackBerry had gone from standing image to “how do you do, fellow kids?” within the blink of an eye fixed

Blind revolutionaries

Johnson sees BlackBerry’s downfall as a cautionary story, but in addition one thing of a tragic one.

“They set up the scaffolding for a revolution, but then didn’t realise one was about to happen,” he says.

“It wasn’t that the iPhone was just a better product,” says Johnson.

“It had more to do with the vision of a company like Apple compared to Reality In Motion.

“People say they’re a part of the ‘Apple ecosystem’ – the model means greater than the merchandise.

“BlackBerry just did not do that and weren’t interested in that.

“And by the top, these unique engineers find yourself so disillusioned and alienated from the factor they constructed, I do not suppose they even imagine they constructed it.”

BlackBerry saved chipping away at iPhone-style touchscreen gadgets, however discovered itself swimming in opposition to a tide made even stronger by the recognition of Android.

In 2016, the agency gave up making telephones and transitioned to being a software program safety enterprise, licensing out the BlackBerry identify for different producers to provide it a shot.

The final hurrah was 2018’s BlackBerry KEY2 LE from China’s TCL, an awkwardly assembled jack of all trades that unceremoniously caught a keyboard on the foot of a touchscreen.

It may hardly have been additional away from Lazaridis’s unique “texts, calls, email” imaginative and prescient for a telephone, one which Johnson thinks would possibly but make a big return.

Nostalgia-driven “dumb phones” from Nokia have seen a resurgence as customers search a detox from social media, whereas newcomers just like the Light Phone proudly boast of providing nothing however texts and calls.

“I think if BlackBerry had reverted to that philosophy, they might’ve found success,” he says.

What’s sure is that no firm can afford to relaxation on its laurels within the fixed churn of Silicon Valley.

The trendy smartphone could also be missing for innovation, however as BlackBerry and that iPhone each proved, the longer term can emerge very quickly in any respect.

BlackBerry releases in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 October.