They didn't know it yet, but they had just downloaded the first virus of the 21st century: the addiction to always being on .
You weren’t looking at a mirage. You were looking at the future. blackberry 850 introduction location munich germany
Here was a device designed for efficiency and getting things done . Yet, it was launched in a city famous for two things: Gemütlichkeit (the deliberate state of relaxation) and Oktoberfest . They didn't know it yet, but they had
When you walk past the corner of Prannerstraße and Theatinerstraße today—where that launch event likely took place—you are walking through a ghost of the analog past. In 1999, a handful of German tech journalists held a black plastic brick and learned to type with their thumbs. Here was a device designed for efficiency and
The journalists in attendance were skeptical. Why would you need a device that was too big to be a pager and too small to be a Palm Pilot? The one thing they didn't mock was the keyboard. Those tiny, chiclet-style keys felt surprisingly tactile—a tactile illusion that would eventually lead to the medical diagnosis of "BlackBerry Thumb." Munich didn't just host the launch; it became the petri dish for the "CrackBerry" addiction.
Munich gave the world lederhosen, pretzels, and the BMW. But it also gave us the BlackBerry. And for that, your aching thumbs should probably send a silent thank you to Bavaria.
Imagine that. Today, we expect the universe in our pocket. Back then, the magic trick was that you could reply to an email without a laptop.