BlackBerry isn’t the most prolific device makers when it comes to software updates. The company boasts as one of the best at offering software-based security solutions, but the timeliness of delivering security updates on its Android phones is still somehow wanting.
For a company that claims to sell the most secure smartphones on the planet, you’d expect that dishing out the most up to date Android OS versions and monthly security patches in tandem with Google would be the norm at BlackBerry Mobile, but no, that is just some fantasy-level stuff.
If you own an Android-powered BlackBerry smartphone, you’ve at some point gone over a month or two without a software update. This isn’t what you’d want to get from the most security- and privacy-centric smartphone vendor out there.
Case in point is the incoming AT&T BlackBerry KEYone update. The phone has recently started receiving a new software update that bumps the security patch level to September 2019 – in October 2019.
A handful of Samsung devices have already been bumped to the latest October security patches, yet it doesn’t go around making a case of how secure its devices are. While the age of the KEYone might be excused, the fact that a certain Galaxy J2 Core has already received the October patch speaks volumes.
Even more baffling is BlackBerry’s poor track record with Android OS updates. To date, no BlackBerry smartphone has received two major OS upgrades. The BlackBerry PRIV got one upgrade to Marshmallow while the DTEK50 and DTEK60 were literally forgotten.
The KEYone jump shipped from Nougat to Oreo, the current OS running the show, while the Motion doesn’t seem to be getting past Oreo either. As of this writing, the Canadian company has yet to begin rolling out Android 9 Pie updates to any of its devices, not even the flagship KEY2.
But amid all these, it’s still great to see that BlackBerry is rolling out new security updates to one of the devices that brought back its legendary status – the KEYone – no matter how late. If you are on AT&T’s model BBB100-1, be sure to check out for the download notification anytime from now.
The software bump is from version ABZ982 that came out two months ago with July security patches to version ACD561 with September security patches. The OTA weighs 81.6MB, so don’t expect anything out of the ordinary.
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Hillary Keverenge
2043 Posts
Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.
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