The Times newspaper will end support for its apps on the BlackBerry platform at the end of this month.
While BlackBerry was once the gold-standard handset for business people, no doubt many among The Times’ audience, it has lost huge market share over the last two years to iOS and Android devices. It dropped from 16 per cent in 2010 to 5.2 per cent in Q2 2012 and 2.7 per cent at the same time this year, according to Gartner.
Despite some fanfare around the launch of its BB10 OS, the company reported a $950m Q2 loss and is in discussions to be bought by its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial. The Times quietly dropped any mention of its BlackBerry app on the apps area of its website back in February and it is already unfindable in the BlackBerry World store.
BlackBerry users (who?) that are keen to keep up with the headlines can still find Guardian, Mirror and BBC apps in BlackBerry World. Non-BlackBerry users can get their hands on iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Android phone and tablet apps as part of The Times digital packages.
A spokesperson from The Times said: “While The Times app on iPhone, iPad and Android continues to be very successful, very few people use the app on their Blackberry, it is possible however to access the website via most Blackberrys.”