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The rise and fall of the 

Blackberry in popular culture

Blackberry has announced its no longer going to design its own phones, 14 years after the first one came out.

It could still put out handsets but they won't be designed in-house.

Over the years Blackberry's image has shifted from a businessman's assistant, to a celebrity accessory, to the organisational tool behind the London riots.

Recently, though, its popularity has waned in the face of competition from iPhone and Android.

Here, then, is the evolution of the Blackberry in popular culture.

Blackberry released its first two-way pager in 1999 - the Blackberry 850.

But it wasn't until three years later in 2002 that we saw the first model which could properly be called a phone.

The 5810 could handle emails, web browsing and, amazingly, it could even take calls if it was connected to a headset.

Back then, though, things were all business. Mobile phones were the territory of people in smart suits with important meetings to get to.

"We had a very, very successful recipe of what Blackberry was all about," former chief executive Thorsten Heins told CIO magazine in 2010.

Although the Blackberry has dropped in popularity over the last few years it was a sensation and more people had these than iPhone and android. this is why this story really stood out to me as it is a big shock to see such a big company stop in production.