Ok, we threw it against the wall, and some of it stuck and some of it slid down the wall a little. The latest update from one of our sources says that June 20th will be the announcement and launch party of the Sidekick 3, aka when all the celebrities will get their picture taken with the new Sidekick. June 28th should be the beginning of the upgrade program, which we don’t have concrete details on yet, but we’re assuming it will be the same deal as the Sidekick II. Current owners will receive an email to their @tmail.com address, with a phone number to call and listen to the busy signal for hours, finally get through and place an order and exchange an older Sidekick in exchange for a rebate. The last time, they took any model, and several people traded in their old black and white sidekicks without any problem. As for in store releases, it’s looking like early July. This will obviously vary depending on TMobile locations, shipments, delays, etc.

At this point, we’re no longer calling this rumour, this comes from a reliable source that has an excellent track record with us. This is the information that was conveyed to them. At this point, any changes in date are probably a result of TMobile shifting things around.

This isn’t news in any sense, but it made us laugh and we figured we’d share it with you. “The Newest of the sidekick sereis” ?? We received the following email with this image attached:

Yesterday while i was at work, i was talking to my friend on aim, and he told me that the sk3 was up on the tmobile website. At first i didn’t believe him because of all the other fake stuff thats been floating around. I couldn’t check for myself since i was at work so he said he would use the PrtScn button that’s on the keyboard. When i got home that night he sent me the pic and i was pretty amazed because it looked real. Feel free to post if you’s like. Though it might be better then some of the crap posted lately.

To add to the amusement, this user has been banned from the hiptop.com/forums several times:
1st banned
2nd banned
Soon to be banned

pandemic nailed the name of the Sidekick 3 MP3 player in only the 2nd comment. That’s right, according to the manual the MP3 player on the Sidekick 3 is named SonicBOOM. Based on the manual page we obtained, it’s no surprise that the miniSD card is going to function as the storage for your MP3s, and will show up as a removable drive on your PC. Luckily no extra software, or DRM codecs or anything to install. Just copy the MP3s over, unplug, and play! With the recent release of 2GB miniSD cards (which the Sidekick 3 can hopefully handle), you’ll be able to carry approximately 500 MP3s. And if you downsample the MP3s, you’ll be able to squeeze even more on there. Just don’t forget to leave some room for pictures taken with your 1.3megapizel camera. Looks like Danger is really listening to one of the top demands users had after the Sidekick II came out!

Updated Dates
Ok, normally we don’t like posting up the release dates cause we’ve heard everything under the sun from November 2005 to Christmas 2006, but we’ve gotten quite a few reliable leads on this, so we’re throwing it against the wall and seeing if it sticks. We’ve heard that the launch party will be happening on June 20th, and then Sidekick 3s being available to the general public on June 26th. While we still haven’t heard anything about a trade-in program like TMobile did with the Sidekick 2, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it will happen. In that case, we wouldn’t be surprised to see an email go out to existing Sidekick owners sometime between the 20th and the 26th. Hopefully we won’t have another Black Monday this time, and current customers will receive their Sidekick 3s rapidly.

Just an interesting little thing, the site www.sidekickiii.com is loading up the flash that you would normally find at www.sidekick.com. The whois info on sidekickiii.com states that it’s TMobile’s.

Registrant:
T-Mobile USA, Inc.

12920 S.E. 38th Street
Bellevue, Washington 98006
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (https://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SIDEKICKIII.COM
Created on: 24-Jun-05
Expires on: 24-Jun-07
Last Updated on: 25-May-06

We’re not sure what all this Hiptunes talk is. In the past, TMobile has tried to distance themselves from Danger in their marketing. TMobile is the only one that calls it a Sidekick, instead of a Hiptop. Why TMobile would switch to using the “Hip” name in their marketing, we’re not sure. And that ad that leaked out is terrible, at least from a marketing standpoint. Why is TMobile the biggest thing on the page? Why not a huge Hiptunes logo and then a typical “only available from TMobile” ? Why would TMobile all of a sudden start using the Danger Hiptop font when they’ve worked so hard to brand the Sidekick? Why is Beyonce’s name bolded and not some eye-catching “play mp3s on your sidekick!” Why isn’t there even a picture of the Sidekick on there? And this ad is definitely aimed at the female market with the butterflies and Beyonce. And what is the text on the image? So we’re calling either photoshop, or fire the guy that thought this was a good ad.

UPDATE: Thanks to Twex on the hiptop.com forums we have a link to the source image used to photoshop that Hiptunes ad. It was also pointed out that there was an SK3 badly photoshopped into her hand that we didn’t even notice. Come on now people, everytime you see a picture of a picture, chances are that it’s fake. Why not just post the original picture?

On a related note, we’re pretty sure that Hiptunes is not the name of the MP3 player on the Hiptop 3. Here’s a hint as to the real name (we’re working on getting proof to you now):

So there has been a lot of discussion about the new trackball, and what it will be like. Hopefully this page from the manual will help answer some questions:

We received these screenshots a few days ago, but forgot about them while we drooled over the blue and red trackball! But here they are. The comment with the MSN screenshot was, “Don’t know if the SK3 will keep it at launch. But here’s the login screen.” And our source added, “More to come over the weeks.” To add to their authenticity, we received the MSN screenshot on May 22nd at 4:34pm and the Address Book screenshot at 5:52pm.

Looks like sidekick3.blogspot.com has received some screenshots from the Hiptop SDK that may be the new OS. We did receive an email from someone stating “My friend who works on the design team for Hiptop has seen this and confirmed that it is fake.” in regards to the Instant Messaging screenshot, but we think that the artifacts in the screenshots are just a result of watermarking using Paint. We’re hoping that this isn’t the final OS, as it looks a little too Fisher-Price for us, but chances are this is at least from a developer kit that was given out prior to a public release in order to get applications running on the new OS.

Some more reader submitted info:

Since I’ve been recieving AWESOME news from you guys. I figure it is time
for me to contribute. Venicom is a vendor that does promotions for certain members. Since I work for a large company, we get promos all the time. I tried to get the 8700g through them, but decided to stick with sk2 for a while–since blackberries are really trash (expensive services). Anyway. When I called, they of course said they were out of the sk2. The reason being is that within 4-6 weeks they expect to put the sk3 out. They are even taking pre-orders.
also they dont know the price yet….since t-mobile hasnt released that officially. They say it will be around 449.00-500.00 in their estimation. DANG. thats super expensive.
Hope that was relevant and groundbreaking. *wink*

We did some digging on Venicom, since we had not heard of them prior to this email. They run UShopWireless which does have some great deals on phones, including the Sidekick 2. We called them up and inquired about the pre-orders. Here’s what the rep we spoke with said:

They ARE taking pre-orders for the Sidekick 3
While they did not have an official release date, He said it’s coming out in the next 3-4 weeks, and this was confirmed with T-Mobile
Their price will be $200 after a $100 rebate. That’s $300 up front, and then a $100 rebate
He refused to give the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price)
He refused to confirm the number of Sidekick 3s that they would be getting initially
When asked why they were taking preorders for a phone that wasn’t even officially announced, he replied that TMobile is about to start their marketing push.