BlackBerry announces the BlackBerry Priv – in a rather anticlimactic way

Have you ever known someone to share some great news with you in the most boring way? I know a few people that don’t seem to know how to announce something good in their lives. If they’re getting married, they’ll tell you in passing with little to no excitement. If they got a raise at work, they’ll mention it with no smile or joy on their faces. While there are just some people who have that kind of personality, we expect better from companies that are about to reveal a new gadget for which the company wants the consumer base to be excited.

The BlackBerry Priv will be the name, although “Venice” sounds much better, but the company’s decision to mention in it a company meeting makes it even less exciting than it is. After all, BlackBerry’s Z10 and Q10 haven’t necessarily had much success: in fact, the latest numbers about BlackBerry show that the company’s sales are falling (which shows why BlackBerry’s been preparing the Priv for an imminent release; company CEO John Chen likely wanted to help put a positive spin on what was otherwise a financial report of disaster for the Canadian company).

I am confirming our plans to launch Priv, an Android device named after BlackBerry’s heritage and core mission of protecting our customers’ privacy. Priv combines the best of BlackBerry security and productivity with the expansive mobile application ecosystem available on the Android platform,

Chen said in the meeting on Friday.

Of course, BlackBerry is continuing to update BB10, its latest OS update, so it seems likely that selling the BlackBerry Priv on the Android platform is the surest way to bring in some profit for the company while it continues to craft its own alternate experience. At the same time, however, for many, BlackBerry’s desire to bring an Android device like the BlackBerry Priv to the market shows just how unpopular BlackBerry’s run as a smartphone maker has been. Few want BBOS because of its app selection (despite its security), and choose instead to embrace Android – even if security can be questionable.

At this point, we don’t know when BlackBerry will release the BlackBerry Priv, but we wish BlackBerry would have announced the product at the meeting (and unveiled it there) instead of announcing it there while planning an upcoming release. At this point, the company might as well go ahead and release it to market. Perhaps this was the company’s announcement, and that November release date on all four carriers makes sense after all.

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