Mission
Bringing Back BlackBerry isn’t about the past, but the future.
To be clear, we’re not talking about old BlackBerry phones from an earlier time.
But a modern BlackBerry, purpose-built for modern times.
Bringing back BlackBerry is about much more than simply seeing a lost logo on a modern mobile; it’s about re-imagining the values that BlackBerry stood for that have been abandoned by mainstream tech:
The World needs BlackBerry now, more than ever
Intentional design
Mobile productivity
Unparalleled communications
Trusted security
Your right to privacy
We’ve been assembling the team, experience, and building blocks to build products in that spirit.
At its peak, the BlackBerry brand was among most valuable in the world, falling just behind Volkswagen and ahead of MTV. And while it went dormant for many years, here in 2025, “the other fruit company” is trending once again.
So what would the BlackBerry brand add to a modern phone?
Fuel to the fire ⛽🔥.
Obtaining the rights to the BlackBerry brand to build and sell phones would be an accelerant…but there’s a catch.
BlackBerry itself has moved on.
Today’s BlackBerry has taken steps to put distance between its past and this future vision. We think this is a mistake and that they’re missing an opportunity.
We need your help to show them that this is the time to bring back Blackberry, and that we’re the team to do it.
GOALS
To that end, our goal for 2025/2026 is to:
Grow the movement to over 1 million petition signers and @BringBackBlackBerry followers.
Nominate and elect CrackBerry Kevin (Kevin Michaluk) to BlackBerry’s Board of Directors.
With enough interest, a seat at the table, and a continued effort to demonstrate the demand for products with the spirit of BlackBerry, we believe the success of this mission is inevitable.
Whether success comes in 13 months or 13 years doesn’t matter, as movements only stop if you quit… Which we will not!
The movement is growing.
When we first announced the Bring Back BlackBerry Manifesto on July 22, the response was overwhelming. Within days, we were flooded with emails, DMs, and calls:
Industry insiders who wanted to lend expertise and help refine the plan.
Investors asking how they could back this vision. The idea to elect Kevin to BlackBerry’s Board of Directors stemmed from these conversations.
Fans and supporters offering to spread the word or contribute in any way possible.
That outpouring of support confirmed what we already knew: this isn’t just our mission. It’s a movement. And it’s only getting stronger. Here’s our master plan…
Unpacking the mission behind the movement
Can you really bring BlackBerry back from the dead?
Actually, BlackBerry still exists. But not as the BlackBerry you remember.
The company hasn’t built its own phone since the BlackBerry Passport and Priv over a decade ago. The last devices to wear the BlackBerry logo were brought to market by the Chinese company TCL through a licensing agreement with BlackBerry. The BlackBerry KEYone, KEY2, and Motion were launched in 2017–2018. Since then, nothing.
Others have tried to re-invent the brand, but have failed to get off the starting blocks. Where they have failed, we will succeed.
Today, BlackBerry is a software company. Its business is QNX operating systems for cars, enterprise security tools, and niche government services. Important work, yes — but nothing to do with what you think of when you hear the name BlackBerry.
Ask almost anyone, and they’ll picture:
A Curve or Bold tucked into their pocket.
A Passport or KEY2 that helped them power through email.
The click of a keyboard that made them faster, sharper, more productive.
That’s the disconnect. The brand lives on, but stripped of the devices, values, and people that made it matter.
Why now?
The world needs BlackBerry now, more than ever.
As smartphones have become more powerful, they’ve become less purposeful.
Tools that once made people feel empowered are now causing people to feel trapped.
Purposeful productivity has been overtaken by endless scrolling.
And at a time when smartphones can do more than ever, people feel like they have to get back to their desks to get things done. How’s that for a paradox?
BlackBerry loyalists and Gen Z is waking up to the gap in intentional tech, and demanding more purpose-built products.
In 2025 BlackBerry has been making headlines thanks to TikTok and Gen Z rediscovering old BlackBerry smartphones with fresh enthusiasm.
They are overtly seeking an alternative to their dopamine-inducing touchscreen slabs.
With BlackBerry leaving a void in the mobile market, independent companies and projects have been stepping up and proving the demand is still there — from the Clicks Keyboard Case for iPhone that went viral in 2024, to qwerty phones from Unihertz and Minimal that raised millions via crowdfunding, to the BBRevival Project that is modding old BlackBerry hardware with Android.
On one hand, these projects validate the demand for a BlackBerry-like experience in today’s market. But on the other hand, a modern reinvention of a BlackBerry smartphone would generate orders of magnitude more traction.
This isn’t just about nostalgia for the brand, and we’re not trying to build a time machine to relive the glory days.
It’s about building a modern BlackBerry experience that takes those values — productivity and communications with an uncompromising stance on privacy and security — and reimagining them for today.
We’re not naive to think that a modern BlackBerry would go head-to-head with the behemoths of Apple or Samsung, or persuade people to give up their flagship smartphone. That’s a different game altogether, and not one we want to play.
We want to change the game altogether by building a much-needed alternative, a “digital essential” phone for people who want to stop doomscrolling and start communicating.
While products like this may be a secondary device for some and a primary one for others, it will be embraced by those who value intentional, purpose-built tech.
And we know there are millions out there still who will want a new BlackBerry. We hear from them every day…
The Team Leading the Charge
This movement isn’t being led by hobbyists. It’s led by the two people best positioned on the planet to bring BlackBerry back, Kevin Michaluk and Jeff Gadway (aka CBK & Gadway).
Complemented by a growing team of industry veterans and partners, they have the skills, the track record and the community to make it real.
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CBK is the founder of CrackBerry.com, the largest BlackBerry community in the world and the place where millions of fans and professionals came together to celebrate, debate, and push the platform forward. No one has lived, breathed, and championed BlackBerry longer or louder. BlackBerry’s CEO and leadership teams change, but CBK remains.
But Kevin’s credibility goes beyond community. As cofounder and Chief Media and Chief Operating Officer of Mobile Nations, a digital media company covering smartphones and consumer tech, over 15 years he oversaw coverage of thousands of product launches across every category — the good, the bad, and the forgettable. That experience gave him a unique perspective on what makes technology succeed or fail.
In 2019, Mobile Nations was acquired by Future PLC in a nine-figure exit. That success gave Kevin not just operational chops, but the media savvy and entrepreneurial track record to build and scale companies.
In 2022, Kevin began building and planting the seeds for the #BringBackBlackBerry mission by co-founding two separate ventures that in many ways are spiritual successors to BlackBerry on both the hardware and operating system fronts:
Hardware: Clicks Technology, makers of the Clicks Keyboard for iPhone and Android devices, reignited the passion for physical buttons on smartphones and has proven the modern appetite for QWERTY. Clicks has an ambitious roadmap and a mission to bring buttons back to the world of smartphones.
Operating System: Apostrophy OS, building a secure, privacy-first mobile OS for individuals, high net worth families and business/government use.
At CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Wired declared Clicks the Best Mobile product and Apostrophy OS the Best Software in their Best of CES Awards.
No one on earth has the same mix of BlackBerry authority, community trust, operational experience, and entrepreneurial vision. There is no better person to steward the BlackBerry brand into its next chapter.
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In the 10 years Gadway spent at Research In Motion, he helped bring some of the most beloved BlackBerry smartphones to the world, led the marketing for BBM across BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and Windows, and was responsible for product marketing.
As a cofounder of Clicks, Gadway has been leading the charge to bring back buttons and build a brand that champions people who take action.
Gadway has established extensive marketing and GTM experience as co-founder of Galvanize Worldwide, a marketing firm that has worked with public and private companies to shape and tell their authentic story.
What we’re building towards.
When people hear “Bring Back BlackBerry,” they may think we mean resurrecting not just the hardware, but also the old operating systems — BlackBerry OS or BlackBerry 10. Let’s be clear: that’s not possible (we’ve talked to the right people…), and it’s not the goal.
Those platforms were groundbreaking in their day, but the teams that built them are long gone, the intellectual property has been fragmented or sold off, and the economics simply don’t work. More importantly, the app ecosystem never materialized — and that’s why BlackBerry failed.
The most viable path forward for a modern BlackBerry is based on the Android kernel, allowing for Android apps.
That doesn’t mean it has to look or feel like just another Android phone.
In fact, that’s the opportunity: to build a fit-for-purpose mobile that takes the foundations of Android and infuses them with the values, design, and user experience that made BlackBerry legendary.
We have ideas and plans for how to do this, including different paths ranging from a more consumer-oriented Android OS device to a more hardened, security-focused solution built atop Android and ApostrophyOS.
This approach respects reality — the world won’t accept a third app ecosystem — while also honoring the spirit of BlackBerry: security, productivity, and communication at the core.
A modern BlackBerry is not about reliving the past. It’s about designing the future on solid foundations, with devices that can sell in the millions while carving out a new category of intentional, purpose-built smartphones.
What to Expect Next
This movement is just getting started. Here’s what’s coming up — and how you can stay in the loop:
Bring Back BlackBerry Launch Event (October 8th, 2025) - Taking place in Brooklyn, NYC, we’re going to gather media, creators and of course QWERTY fans together, to hear the BBBB story first hand and to touch some of the newest devices in the QWERTY space before anyone else including the Unihertz Titan 2, Clicks for iPhone 17, Zinwa Q25 and Sidephone! Want to attend? RSVP here. >
🎙️ Bring Back BlackBerry Podcast (October 2025) – Hosted by Kevin Michaluk and Jeff Gadway, featuring stories from BlackBerry’s past, today’s community and the projects in the QWERTY space, bringing back buttons, and of course the roadmap to a modern BlackBerry.
📬 Email Updates – No spam, no fluff. Just 1–2 updates per month with campaign news, milestones, and ways to get involved. (You can unsubscribe anytime.)
🔦 Featured Projects – While we push for an official BlackBerry comeback, we’ll spotlight the innovators already carrying the torch — from Clicks to Apostrophy, to indie builders like Zinwa and Unihertz.
Join the movement
This Movement is GLOBAL, here’s how to follow:
When you sign the petition, we’ll ask you what country you live in so we can better understand the demand for a modern BlackBerry around the world.
For the latest major updates you can visit BringBackBlackBerry.com (be sure to sign up for updates!), and follow @bringbackblackberry on both Instagram and Facebook.
For the play by play as things happen, be sure to follow @crackberrykevin on Linkedin, Instagram, Threads and X and you can always check out CrackBerry.com for the latest info on QWERTY and intentional tech devices.
This Is Bigger Than Us
CBK and Gadway may be the tip of the spear, but the momentum behind this campaign is fueled by the people rallying around it. Every week, more partners, advisors, and believers step forward to tighten the vision and help push it forward.
If you’re reading this and wondering how you can help — the answer is: you can. The simplest way is to start by signing the petition: