The Silver Anniversary

If you're a mobile buff you've been and will continue reading this everywhere you look this month, but it's momentous enough to repeat here as well. 25 years ago this week, the world's first commercial cell phone call took place right here in Chicago. From inside a convertible at Soldier Field, Bob Barnett, then president of Ameritech Mobile, phoned the grandson of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. The content of Barnett's conversation with Bell's grandson, who was in Berlin at the time, is now the stuff of legend. Many speculate that the two men hailed the achievement and spoke of all the good it could do for mankind. Other bystanders report that Barnett spoke only one sentence: 'It's cold as $!&# here, Alex.' Whatever the case, it was the start of a revolution.

So what are some ways to commemorate the Silver anniversary of the commercial cellular phone? One idea I've heard Motorola is toying with is a reissue of their original model, the DynaTAC. If this is true, they'll probably want to adjust the original's sticker price ($4000) and do something about its infamous girth.
If it were up to me, we'd see a limited-edition sterling silver iPhone to mark the occasion. Rather than wait for this highly unlikely occurrence, however, how about we simply take a minute's silence to reflect on everything our mobile devices have done for us in the last 25 years?
Now that was nice. If you're like me, your silence was interrupted (or, as we might say, blessed) at least once by the dulcet ringtone of your beloved device, and perhaps that is the ultimate testament: in 25 short years the mobile phone's gone from a clunky luxury item to something that pervades every aspect of our lives.