In the words of that celebrated business analyst, Joni Mitchell, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”. This week BlackBerry users had the chance to find out in advance.

In years to come the great Outage – or BlackBerry Crumble as it fast became known – will surely stand with the New York blackout or the Icelandic volcano as one of those freak events that upended modern life. Tales of heroism and ingenuity will abound. “I walked for three days without an email”, “I had to sit listening for the entire meeting”, or “I started phoning people”.

As amputees are said to reach for their missing limbs, so BlackBerry users found themselves stabbing at the trackpad to see if the emails were back online. Frustrated users hit Twitter (the world’s premier outlet for bellyaching) and the BB forums to voice their pain. “I’m sending this from my new iPhone,” noted one.