Following up on today's post from BlackBerry CEO John Chen on how he plans to crack down on leaks, we thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane and check out some of our favorite leaks from the years gone by. There are actually many more than I remembered, so we kept this one to device-related leaks and exclusives as well, that tends to be where most of us get the MOST excited.
We've arranged them all here in chronological order for your viewing pleasure, starting with the oldest (in 2007) and working forward to the modern era of BlackBerry 10 phones. Enjoy the trip down memory lane!
November 2, 2007
1 of 10 - Evidence that the BlackBerry Curve 8300 can record video!
Less of a "device leak" and more of a "device discovery coming from a leaked OS", this is seriously one of the first videos I ever uploaded to youtube and it was my first video to get over 100,000 views. When the Curve went to market, it could only take photos. There was no video recording. When OS 4.3 leaked out, all of a sudden the video camera started working. This was an uber-popular phone at the time and people loved this new video recording functionality. It was an awesome scoop.
May 6, 2008
2 of 10 - World's First Review of the BlackBerry Bold 9000 - bought from eBay!
Ok, now this is still probably my FAVORITE leak of all time. It's sort of what put CrackBerry on the map so to speak. The BlackBerry 9000 was rumored for a while, and one day in our forums a thread popped saying that one just appeared on eBay for sale. I clicked the link, looked at the photos, and decided within seconds it was the real deal. I bought the 9000 there and then and a few days later it arrived. I reviewed this baby like nothing I had before. It was glorious. Keep in mind at this point BlackBerry had never yet officially acknowledged the Bold 9000, which they did a week later at their annual WES conference. I attended the conference. Walking through the conference centre, everybody seemed to know me by name and had watched the video and review.
July 23, 2008
3 of 10 - World's First Review of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip!
BlackBerry Kickstart / Pearl Flip Review - When photos of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip (codename Kickstart) leaked a few months earlier by BGR, they got a LOT of attention online. BlackBerry making a flip phone seemed like a HUGE deal at the time given the amount of people still using flip phones in the world. While we didn't post the first photos, once again I was the first to get my hands on the phone and review the hell out of it. Ultimately this phone was under powered and not a big hit, though sitting closed on a desk it's still one of my favorite looking BlackBerry devices EVAH!
September 20, 2008
4 of 10 - World's First Review of the BlackBerry Curve 8900!
After doing the world's first reviews of the Bold 9000 and Pearl Flip, I was super happy to complete the trifecta of smartphone review exclusives with the world's first review of the BlackBerry Curve 8900, codenamed Javelin. While I loved the Bold 9000, I really enjoyed the Curve 8900. The 8900 had a new style of trackball that was a little more smooth to use and durable, and the design language of the phone was a little tighter than in the past. Great looking phone all around. This was a Curve that CrackBerry Nation was still excited about. It was a flagship Curve. After this, the Curves when a little more "entry level".
July 13, 2008
5 of 10 - First Real Photos of the BlackBerry Storm!
It's hard me to even write about this one, as the story behind how I got my hands on this photo is so insanely ridiculous. Maybe if/when I write the CrackBerry Chronicles years from now I'll tell the story. It's insane. Suffice to say, this was a massive story. With AT&T having the iPhone, everybody was looking at the BlackBerry Storm / Thunder with full anticipation as it would be Verizon's answer to it. The rumor mill was MASSIVE around this phone. BlackBerry even played in the game too, with both Storm and Thunder trading places as codenames and product name. First the codename was Storm, then it switched to Thunder for a while, then it came to back Storm and ultimately BlackBerry's first touchscreen phone was called the Storm. These photos went EVERYWHERE.
May 4, 2009
6 of 10 - World's First Review of the BlackBerry Curve 8520!
This is one of my favorite leaks of all time because of the story around which it happened. I actually pumped out this world's first hands-on review of the Curve 8520 from my hotel room at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, the day before BlackBerry's WES conference began. The Curve 8520 was a REALLY fun device to get my thumb on as it was the first that featured the optical trackpad. At that point in time we were seeing early leaks of the Bold 9700 still showing a trackball, so for the 8520 to have a trackpad was awesome. Outside of the people building the phone, I was literally one of the first people in the world to put this new technology to use. Which, after years of trackballs, was a bit crazy change. I remember it may me all of a sudden suck at playing BrickBreaker, but I could see the potential.
May 14, 2009
7 of 10 - First Photos of the BlackBerry Storm 2!
Following up on the first photos of the BlackBerry Storm we posted, I was pretty excited when photos of the Storm 2 fell into my lap to share. With the original Storm turning out to be dud overall (though a lot of people really did LOVE their Storm), many looked to BlackBerry's second touchscreen to be the one that got it right. The Storm 2 still featured a screen that clicked, though it went from a single plunger design to four, and with some piezoelectric tech behind it seemed almost magical. Some people thought these photos were leaked to me by BlackBerry, but trust me, they were not. This was one of those times when we pulled the photos down on advice of our lawyer after getting some very scary looking documents in the mail from the fine folks at BBRY.
May 24, 2009
8 of 10 - World's First Review of the BlackBerr Bold 9700!
The GSM successor to the Bold 9000, the Bold 9700 was a MUCH anticipated BlackBerry. We posted the first photos of this device just a few weeks earlier, and then ultimately the BlackBerry Fairy dropped one off at my door for the world's first pre-release review. My unit was still so early that it featured a trackball vs. the trackpad it ultimately launched with. It wasn't until October 21st that the 9700 was officially announced. This first hands-on review came 5 months early. Those were the days! :)
January 31, 2012
9 of 10 - First Image of a BlackBerry 10 Phone!
Late in November, TheVerge posted a photo of what was claimed to be the first BBX-powered BlackBerry. It was a dummy model vs. a real unit, but with a silver body and angular edges it looked a little un-BlackBerry, despite the PlayBook-looking OS on the screen. My sources at the time told me the photo was legit, but it was a scrapped concept (there were apparently LOTS of concepts being looked at). Six weeks later, sent in on the good 'ole CrackBerry tip line, was the image above of the first BlackBerry 10 Superphone. This was a huge story of course, and the image/render was absolutely legit coming off of some sort of a BlackBerry and/or carrier presentation. A few details changed between this photo and what the Z10 ultimately looked like at launch, but this was the first real quality look at a BB10 phone.
September 27, 2012
10 of 10 - First Official Image of the BlackBerry Q10!
With the other nine leaks in this top ten list, it was really about CrackBerry coming through with the goods via our tip line or the BlackBerry fairy (if you're a good boy or girl and put an old BlackBerry under your pillow when you go to sleep, sometimes a new unreleased one just magically appears!). This last leak was 100% courtesy of BlackBerry, or rather, a really not-bright freelancer who worked for one of BlackBerry's ad agencies and for some reason uploaded an internal marketing video to his Vimeo portfolio page.
We were quick to discover this faux pas — I was actually sitting in the press room at the BlackBerry Developer Conference surrounding by bloggers and journalists when we discovered it — and we blogged it up stat. The marketing video of featured official renders of the Q10 (rumored as N-Series at the time). With much interest in what the qwerty version of BB10 would look like, this one got big traction. I feel bad for the guy who accidentally leaked this one, but it did generate a lot of excitement at least when we were first to report it.
And that's our top ten favorite BlackBerry device leaks in CrackBerry history. We kept this one contained to our top ten device leaks as we tend to get the most excited about those, but over the years there have been plenty of other exciting exclusives around software, roadmaps and even enterprise.
What was your favorite of the top ten? Any that we missed? Let us know in the comments!
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