Rest In Peace, T-Mobile Sidekick

It wasn't my first Smartphone - the Kyocera 6035 running PalmOS was that - but the Sidekick may have been the best pre-iPhone smartphone. It provided the killer e-mail experience of a Blackberry at about 1/10th the cost, and also offered excellent texting, good-enough web surfing, and a real App Store years before Apple. It was the T-Mobile Sidekick. And it's best feature was full cloud integration - years before anyone else got it right - your contacts, e-mails, photos, everything was always available online from any computer. But that cloud service goes away starting today, relegating a titan of smartphone usability to being just another Android phone.

Rest in Peace, Sidekick. You will be missed.

Why Microsoft killed the T-Mobile Sidekick

Prior to the iPhone, the best SmartPhone for someone who didn't need Outlook access was arguably the T-Mobile Sidekick. It provided excellent cloud capabilities (all contacts, calendars, photos, etc. were synced auto-magically) back when "the Cloud" was still conceptual to Microsoft and Apple. It was a good phone with strong battery and antenna. It had an excellent screen, a unique design, and an excellent hard keyboard. And it had the cheapest unlimited data plan out there, appealing to low-end users. Then, it was bought by Microsoft who promptly let the servers die, losing customer data, and then turned it into the Kin. Which they promptly killed, in favor of Windows 7 phones.

Why did Microsoft buy such a valuable piece of technology and then abandon it? Insiders claim it was a combination of factors: (1) the psychotic obsession with making every operating system a branch of Windows (pushed by the release by 18 months), (2) the internecine squabbling within the Microsoft mobile division amongst managers, and (3) a complete lack of actual vision for what the behemoth wants to produce for a phone.

Overall, it appears that Microsoft simply never saw the Apple/Google SmartPhone revolution coming. So, every move in the last 3 years - Windows Mobile 6.X, the Windows Phone 7 announcements, the Sidekick/Hiptop/Kin moves, the Microsoft Courier project - are all signs of panic as they try to figure out how to proceed and who to copy. Expect more casualties in the months ahead.

Rest in Peace, Sidekick. You will be missed.

Sidekick Debacle is now a Class Action Lawsuit

Many people ask me what I have against Microsoft. After all, they gave the world MS DOS, Windows 95, Excel, and Word, right? Yes, but for every great success they have a parallel case of taking something great, and tearing it down for no apparent reason. Newest example: The T-Mobile Sidekick.

For those who may not remember, if you were a happy SmartPhone user in the days before the iPhone - and were not a Crackberry addict - odds are you used a T-Mobile Sidekick (a.k.a. Danger HipTop). This device was a beautifully-designed (albeit somewhat chunky) phone built from the ground up for e-mail, web browsing, and instant messaging. At a time when people were debating how many characters should be displayed on a black-and-white text-only "mobile website", the Sidekick was rendering CNN in full-color with graphics. And all data synced effortlessly with online servers from which users could view all the info as easily as MobileMe is today, or could download data to Outlook. I owned a Sidekick II and III, and loved them both as they kept me connected places that broadband and even dial-up could not reach. I only left the line when the iPhone came out.

This past year, Microsoft - in an attempt to salvage its failing Windows Mobile/Windows Phone/Windows CE line of phones - bought out Danger and took ownership of the whole system which they transformed into "Project Pink". This past week, Microsoft attempted to do a basic upgrade of their storage system for the online data services which failed catastrophically. And apparently, they had failed to do regular backups, so there was no fallback position. Critical customer data was lost, and T-Mobile was forced to advise Sidekick owners "not to turn off your phones" lest the data be lost forever. This one event has likely doomed the Sidekick and Project Pink forever, and cast a shadow over "Cloud Computing" for the future.

Now, T-Mobile is being sued for the data loss in to separate class-action lawsuits. Look for this to quickly be followed up by lawsuits by T-Mobile against Mocrosoft, and perhaps by Microsoft against the people who sold them Danger. This is going to be a messy blame game for all involved.

Rest in Peace, Sidekick. You'll be sorely missed.

UPDATE 2:45 PM: Microsoft now claims all data has been recovered. Here's hoping they are right.

Microsoft to buy Danger (Maker of T-Mobile Sidekick)

In an apparent attempt to end the iPhone's dominance over Windows Mobile, Microsoft has announced they will be buying out Danger the maker of the Sidekick line of phones. Long-time Mod-Bloggers are aware that once upon a time I was a HUGE fan of the Sidekick devices, which were great for doing e-mail and text messaging. However, when the iPhone appeared, I quickly made the switch.

Honestly, this may be good for Danger, whose phones were being quickly marginalized by the growing smartphone market. Their phones were always popular with teens, but never figured out how to sell to adults. If they can marry Microsoft's business savvy with the Sidekick form factor and web-savvy nature, it could work.

Nomad's Mobile Links

Technically, this is NOT an iPhone post. It is a "mobile websites" posting. But feel free to rank on me for it anyway. I Have put together my personal collectio of mobile links (inluding Mod-Blog Lite) into a single handy-dandy website. If anyone is interested in using any of these links on their iPhone, Sidekick, Palm device, Blackberry, etc. feel free to click thru.

I will try to maintain this list, but no promises. To suggest more links or report broken links email me.

Poor man's iPhone

This is an interesting blog post. But more important - and might I mention comical - than the post is the photo and caption.

iPhone service plans announced

For those interested - which seems to be about 60% of Mod-Bloggers - the service plans for the iPhone have been announced. Apple/AT&T have made a smart move in making data rates unlimited on all plans. The rates seem competitive with something like a Sidekick which, from what I can tell is $30 for data and whatever calling plan you want. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, those of you with a Sidekick). So, the bottom plan for the iPhone is $60 with data and calling. Not too bad, though that does mean you have to fork over the $500 for the phone in the first place.

Sidekick, Good Old Sidekick

As someone who has owned all three generations of the T-Mobile Sidekick, it is one of my favorite electronics that I own. CNN had up an interesting article on the Sidekick that explores why it is so hot amongst the 18-34 year old market. The most interesting stat from the article to me is "the average T-Mobile Sidekick customer sends or receives more than 3,000 instant messages per month". While I don't use my Sidekick much for IMing, it is easy to use and I do send a certain amount of text messages every month.