It’s looking more and more like the next “Sidekicks” won’t really be the Sidekick we know and love. With the purchase of Danger by Microsoft, the team behind the Sidekick has been moved over to a project codenamed Pink. I’ve mentioned this project before, but 9to5mac has some new info on Pink. They’re reporting that the first two devices to come out of Project Pink will be landing in early 2010. The devices will be sliders, so the familiar screen flip will be gone, but they will be manufactured by Sharp like the current ‘kicks. There are two devices rumored to be coming out. Their code names are “Turtle” and “Pure”.
Turtle will be a “squircle” shaped device with a slide out keyboard. The image you see above is a supposed drawing of it. The slide out keyboard will also have a mic so you’ll need to have the keyboard open when you’re making a phone call. The Pure device is more along the lines of a standard candy-bar slider style device. So far no pics of Pure have leaked out yet.
They’re both rumored to be setup to use an App Store model of application delivery and I wouldn’t be surprised if behind the scenes it was the same technology running Danger’s Download Catalog. However probably most controversial news to die-hard Sidekickers: It’s looking like the new devices might be running on Windows Mobile 7. What do you think? Does Microsoft have a chance to jump back in the market or is it too late as everyone jumps ship to iPhones and Android devices.