![]() ![]() ![]() The original OS had some great functionality, but a few things set it apart from anything that had been done before.ĪIM - this was the first phone that did Instant Messaging well (and had push messages!). The first thing everyone noticed about the Sidekick is the way the screen flipped up to reveal the best keyboard made on any phone (to this day, I am still faster on Sidekick keyboards than I am on any other devices except - maybe - a full computer keyboard). Eventually the guru at the shop said to me, "Give up on that thing and get a Sidekick. I had been testing a Tmobile Windows CE device at the time and kept having to take it back to the shop. But the first minute I got my Sidekick, I knew I had something very special. Some crazy WAP phones without much direction from Nokia.Windows Mobile phones that were almost unusable and required a stylus to make a call.Treos which were good organizers but painful on the Internet.Early Blackberries that barely did anything beyond email.The only other smart devices back then were: It was 2003 when I got my Color Sidekick (the Black and White one debuted a year earlier). In fact, I'd venture to say that the Sidekick was the first real smartphone ever made. My first smartphone was a Tmobile Sidekick. ![]() Google, in turn, made Rubin the Director of Mobile Platforms. Rubin later formed Android, which was then bought by Google. They created an entirely new platform and with the help of Tmobile, revolutionized the way phones worked. The Sidekick came out of the efforts of a few ex-Apple Engineers, Andy Rubin, Joe Britt, and Matt Hershenson, who started Danger in 2000. Perhaps this switchover was part of the reason for the outage?īut really, the Sidekick was already dead, Microsoft was just the latest to put a nail in its coffin. Microsoft may or may not launch the Pink line of smartphones which are based on the same Sharp hardware and will supposedly replace the Sidekick in the near future. This incident effectively marks the end of the line for one of the most important devices in gadget history. All models are now showing " temporarily out of stock" on the company's website.Īdditionally, a warning has been added to the post on T-Mobile's forum which reads: "Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power." T-Mobile has halted the sale of new Sidekicks. I really hope a lot of Sidekick users used the Intellisync software that pushes data to the desktop and would have backed their data up. However, for Tweens who’ve never used Android or people coming from the old Sidekick, the new Sidekick 4G is a great way to hit the ground running with Google’s OS.But customers will be happy to know that Tmobile is offering a free month of data (not a free month of service, just the $20 unlimited data plan) for all of their information. Stock Android with large touch screens is the new way of doing things. For now, I like the older version.īottom line: For people like me who’ve moved from the Sidekick platform eventually to Android, this is a reminder that there is no going back. I imagine with use, the parts will wear and the process will get easier. This Samsung device is more of a two-handed peeling of the screen. The old one took a finger flip, which not only was super easy but contributed to the ‘hipness’. Perhaps my biggest issue with this device is a hardware gripe: The screen doesn’t pop up very easily in this new Sidekick. The combination of these two systems is confusing to users like me who’ve used both and prefer one or the other.Īs the week wore on, I got used to this interface but I’m not entirely convinced that it is overly better than either stock Android or Danger’s original. Meanwhile stock Android presents itself in a 2D grid that can be slid up and down. The original Sidekick’s menu was a simple one-dimensional slide through 10 programs, the most important ones in the middle. Worst of all, the overlay isn’t holistically beneficial. More importantly, the crazy overlay will also mean that it will take much longer to get Android updates to this device (if they happen at all). For those with more refined font and color palettes, the theme will be a turn off. That will appeal to tweens and the hip-hop sect that embraced the original Sidekick. To get the Android OS to operate the way a Sidekick does, Samsung and T-Mobile have built a pretty crazy overlay that puts everything in the funky Sidekick theme. ![]()
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