Blackberry officially confirms the Priv Android phone, and what its name means to users
Most companies make a big deal about their smartphone launches and hold details back until a big announcement is made or an event happens, but Blackberry’s modest approach is a fresh change of pace. The company nonchalantly confirmed the launch of the Blackberry Priv during their company’s quarterly earnings call this morning. Seems they got sick of all the leaks and decided to just let the cat out of the bag themselves.
There weren’t many details to be had, but they did give us a nugget of information about its name and what it means. “Priv” is actually short for “Privacy.” Suddenly makes a whole lot of sense, right? Here’s what CEO John Chen had to say about it:
Today, 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.
It’s nice to hear an OEM make “privacy” a primary talking point in a day and age where we’re all paranoid about that kind of stuff. But mostly, users are just happy to get a potentially quality phone that has a physical keyboard on it.
Unfortunately we still don’t have any confirmation on a release timeline for the Blackberry Priv, though the rumor mill has been screaming February so hopefully that’s just as true as the device’s existence has become.
[via Blackberry]