Boy Genius report is now reporting that the Sidekick LX OTA could start rolling out as soon as this week! See our previous post Here covering the 4.6 release notes. Keep in mind that the OTAs are sent out in groups. It might take a few weeks for everyone to get their Update, but everyone WILL get the update. Just have patience.

via Boy Genius Report

T-Mobile/Danger sure are jumping the gun today. They’ve posted the official release notes and we’re going to Mirror the changed here for you just incase they pull it.

Jump Menu & Settings Features
-Backgrounds menu renamed to “Themes”
-Quick Find item searches across device apps
-Empty Trash across device apps
-Spell Check
-Alarm Clock

Web Browser Features
-View Web pages in two layouts: fit-to-screen and full-page-width
-View and save images on Web pages
-Copy selected text on Web pages (method change)

Instant Messaging Features
AOL Instant Messenger
-Group chats
-Find a buddy
-Set a status message and still chat (We think this means an Available message.)
Yahoo! Messenger
-Find a friend
Windows Live Messenger
-Find a contact

Email
-See if message recipient is online
-Send/receive video attachment

Phone Messaging Features
Multimedia Messaging
-Number of slides increased to five
-Send/receive videos
-Audio recording time increased to 60 seconds
Text Messaging
-Auto-discard messages when mailbox is full
-Multi-select messages

Address Book
-Assign 50 “favorite” contacts that appear in their own tab
-Activity Log for each favorite contact
-Online Now tab shows all contacts who are online
-In Browse Contacts screen, Send key places call to highlighted contact
-Send vCard via MMS (in addition to Email, SMS, and Bluetooth)
-Select multiple contacts in Browse Contacts screen.

Bluetooth
-Transfer photos, videos, music files
-Listen to music/videos with hands-free stereo devices
Printing is subsequently missing from this list, but IS in the 4.6 Manual for the LX.

To Do
-New task priority icons

Camera
-Record and send video
-Selection method change
-Crop a photo
-Manually control slide show
-Space remaining shown in title bar
-Send photos/videos via Bluetooth

Media Player
-Play videos

Catalog
-Installing an application or game does not require a device restart
-More space for ringtones (Ringtones are now allocated 2560K rather than 10 slots. Since ringtones are around 100K each, you have room to store approximately 25 ringtones.)
-Assign a default theme/background or ringtone at purchase time

Over the Air Update Notes
4.6 Manual

Thanks to everyone who sent this information in!

If you have a little bit of a closer look at the images on Sidekick.com previewing the Tony Hawk LE device, you can get a little peek at the OTA. They are kind of small, so we’ve zoomed them in for your viewing pleasure.

New AIM splash screen logos:

Media Player splash screen (Formally Music Player)

We’re not quite sure what that is in the middle of the splash screen, our best guess is it’s Album Art for the currently playing track.

Media Player playing a video

Take the size and quality of the video playing in the Media Player shown here with a grain of salt. It looks really edited to us.

Now, let’s go into the errors here.

T-Mobile, please stop showing the Sidekick upside down. Really.

Tony, you *almost* had it!

It was going good the first few times you showed off your Sidekick. But then…

What happened?! For someone who’s such a proclaimed sidekick fan as yourself… You should know better Mr. Hawk.

What you’re looking at is the required FCC label for the next Sidekick. What we’re assuming is the Sidekick Gekko/Aspen is now up on the FCC site as a device manufactured by Sharp named PV210. It’s always nice to see a device confirmed by the FCC because that means their is actually a physical device in the hands of someone. Even with the recent excitement of T-Mobile launching their 3G network, the PV210 is not a 3G device, it’s just good old GSM-850 and PCS1900. Beyond that all we can gather from the FCC docs is that it still uses a microSD card, which means support for music, (probably) videos, themes, and more. Oh, and it has a removable battery, no big surprise there.

The confidentiality on the filed documents expires on August 16th, so unless the FCC screws up then we won’t be seeing the FCC filed pictures of the device until after the rumored July release date. We’ll just have to find some other way to get pictures of the device in the wild. But this date means we’ll definitely be seeing a new Sidekick by August!

FCC Docs

A screenshot of a Javascript error was posted on the PBD forums. It says nothing about a Sidekick Gekko. It just happens that the engine that Danger uses for the Sidekick browser (on all their devices) back-end web proxy (to be exact) is based on the Gecko layout engine, just like Firefox and Netscape. So, nope this doesn’t confirm anything about the Gekko sadly. Not to mention that this sort of screenshot is easily faked with literally 1 line of code on a webpage. The original screenshot below:

Post on Boy Genius Report

Or at least not planned yet… Joel Evans over at Geek.com is saying that a little birdy told him that there is no plan in the near future for a Windows Mobile Sidekick. He was told this at a pre-Mobius event. Mobius is an invite only community run by Microsoft that apparently hasn’t found our address to send us an invite yet. Actually what he quotes is “no new phone” is in the works. We already know that Danger is working on new devices, but this confirms that Microsoft isn’t working on new hardware and we highly doubt Danger has made any efforts to get Windows Mobile running on their current platforms.

Read more

Everyone and their brother has been sending in links about how there was a comment made by Chris Stephenson, the GM of Marketing for Zune, that mentioned that they are trying to find ways to mesh Danger and the Zune team. As of now it’s just a comment, and there’s no confirmation or discussion of a Zune Phone. Our guess is that Danger is being tapped for their UI experience because their operating systems have always been super intuitive and easy to use. But there’s always the possibility of a Zune Phone, but the question is “Would anyone buy one?”

via

We’ve been saying it for months and months, but now we’ve actually got some picture proof for you guys. Yes, the Sidekick LX is getting video, as evidenced by the screenshots above. We’re still trying to figure out details on what exactly the Sidekick will support as far as video is concerned. But yes, you will be able to capture and playback video on the Sidekick LX. I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is “Will I be able to watch YouTube videos?” and as of now we don’t have a firm answer yet. Rumor has it that the H.264 codec will be supported, and YouTube started encoding videos in H.264 for Apple awhile back. So there may be some sort of workaround, but as far as a dedicated YouTube app for the Sidekick LX, we haven’t heard anything yet. We’ve also heard that it might be H.263 instead of H.264. We’ll let you know as soon as we nail it down so you can start converting your videos to be ready.

But for all you Sidekick LX users, look for an OTA coming very soon. And if you’ve been holding off on getting a Sidekick LX because of the lack of video support, it’s time to spend that money you’ve been saving. There was also a recent price drop in the device yesterday, so take advantage of that.

Financial Times has an interview with Hank Nothhaft, the CEO of Danger. Not a whole lot of substance in it other than he mentions his love for horses a lot, and a couple of business mistakes he made. The part that has us interested in is the first question he was asked:

What’s in your pocket?
A prototype of the next Sidekick (mobile-cum-internet device). It’s thinner and less wide but has a bigger keyboard. Now I no longer keep it on a belt, I’m always losing it. I was known as the “absent-minded professor” as a student.

A prototype of the next Sidekick? Could this be the Gekko/Aspen that we’ve been hearing about? I’m trying to wrap my head around how they could be making the keyboard bigger AND make it less wide. But then again, he might be comparing it to a Slide.

thanks for the tip Ricky

This is definitely one to take with a grain of salt, and there’s not really a whole lot of meat to salt! Tmonews is reporting that there are is a new device (possibly two) on the way in July. They say there’s evidence (but not what the evidence is) of a device named “SK Gekko” due on July 27th and a “Sidekick Aspen” launching on July 30th. Like everyone, we’ll have our eye on the FCC site to see what sort of info we can find on these devices if they are in fact real. Could this be the 3G Sidekick we’re all waiting for or maybe just limited edition devices? We’re putting our money on some new limited edition devices since the LX hasn’t had any Limited Editions yet and it would be silly not to offer those since they sell like crazy. Who would you guys most like to see a Limited Edition from?

Thanks for the heads-up Shawn