A few months ago, just as it was launching its beta Email service, Nokia stated that it was discontinuing support for its BlackBerry Connect client, which allows Eseries smartphones to connect to BlackBerry servers for full push email capabilities. The announcement came under much fire, as Nokia had also just announced the E66 and E71, neither of which would be getting their own BlackBerry Connect client.
Also recently, the Nokia E90, that lovable monstrosity, received a much-needed firmware update, to v300.34.84. Readers quickly discovered that the current version of BlackBerry Connect was incompatible, and we feared that Nokia had broken compatibility and not told anyone – which is devastating for such a business-critical application. We, and other sites such as AllAboutSymbian, were suggesting that E90 owners dependent on BlackBerry Connect hold off on the update temporarily.
Today, thanks to commenters, we learned that Nokia had indeed acted in good faith, and released an updated BlackBerry Connect client for use with the E90 firmware v300.34.84. Great, and thanks, Nokia. However, that brings to mind 2 very important questions:
1. Why did Nokia release a firmware that would (temporarily) break compatibility with such a business-critical service without letting users know, and without announcing the availability of the updated BlackBerry Connect application?
2. Why, if Nokia updated the BlackBerry Connect application for the E90, wouldn’t they do the same for the E66/E71, both of which are newer, sexier phones?
Questions we may never get answered, but in the meantime, if you updated your E90 and lost BlackBerry Connect, you can get it back here.
