The Sidekick iD is now available in T-Mobile stores and online at T-Mobile.com. Looks like the retail price on it is $299! Ouch! But if you’re willing to sign up for a two year contract, you’ll get it for $99. One of the big selling points of the T-Mobile Sidekick iD is the fact that it’s customizable. Here’s what they say:

Offered with a number of colorful accessories, the T-Mobile Sidekick iD will be the most personalized T-Mobile Sidekick to date. The customizable exterior provides quick modification so users can mix and match based on mood, personal style, or that evening’s outfit. Along with additional options for ‘blinging’ devices or wrapping them with unique graphic designs, T-Mobile Sidekick iD users will take the look and feel of their devices in all new directions.

All of these new options are in addition to the standard customization choices that already exist on the T-Mobile Sidekick 3. This includes support for one-click downloads from Danger’s on-device premium services catalog to add ringtones, games and even productivity applications1. Users can also create custom audio and visual alerts, and use photos from the photo album as the default key guard screen.

Also of note is this is the first time that Danger has had multiple devices released and supported at the same time. In the past it was one device at a time and you really had only one device to choose from when it came time to buy. Does this mean we’ll see a wider array of different devices from Danger in the future, giving us more choice? We hope so.

Engadget is running their 2006 awards right now. The Danger Sidekick 3 is up for Best Cellphone of 2006. Go over and vote here.

What’s this? A new device? Aaron Landry uncovered some bits of information on Flickr that look like a new device (with camera) is in the works. If you look at the EXIF data it shows “Danger Zante”. Could this be the Sidekick X we’re hearing about? Click here to see what Aaron found. Last time we checked, there wasn’t a camera company named “Danger”.

UPDATE: Images have been pulled from Flickr. New device? new operating system build? a Sidekick iD with a camera attachment? who knows…

We got the image above from someone who probably wants to remain anonymous. We’re told it’s a slide from a PowerPoint presentation given at the T-Mobile National Marketing Meeting last week in Twenty Nine Palms, CA. While it’s not as exciting as pictures of an actual device, it tells us a few things. The “Sidekick X RAZR Multimedia device” basically says it’s going to be made by Motorola, it’ll at least play music (possibly even video since they mention “multimedia” instead of “MP3”), and it will be a smaller form factor as is typical of the RAZR phones. Speculation past that at this point is probably just speculation. Whether or not this “Sidekick X RAZR” name will stick is yet to be seen as well, but chances are the “Sidekick” name is still going to be used since it mentions their “intentions with the Sidekick line”. What’s with the “4:49” in the middle? We’re assuming this was put up on a projector at the conference with a countdown timer to when the session was due to start, a common sight for anyone attending conferences. What’s with the blur? Out of courtesy, we covered up someone’s full name so they don’t catch any heat. Unfortunately no time line or expected drop date, so we expect it’s far in the future. As always, we’ll keep you updated on what we hear.

Looks like the OTA is upon us. A couple of good ones in this update. Character count is back in SMS messages, MyFaves support, saving photos, and the ability to download themes from the catalog. Free themes are still possible though.

From Danger’s Help page:
Release 3.4 Over-the-Air Update for Sidekick 3 Users

This Over-the-Air Update contains the following new device features:

* Support for myFaves phone plan – If you sign up for T-Mobile’s myFaves plan, you will see a new “myFaves” application on your device. To add myFaves contacts, go into the application, press MENU and select either Add myFaves Contact (to add a new contact) or Add from Address Book (to add an existing contact). Read more in the myFaves help page.
* Download “themes” from the Catalog – You can use the themes you download as backgrounds to your application splash screens. To apply a downloaded theme as your background, press JUMP to go to the Jump screen. Then press MENU and select Backgrounds. In the submenu that opens, your downloaded themes will appear at the top of the list.
* Save photo attachments – You can save Email photo attachments to your device. To save a photo, open the message then scroll down to the photo attachment you want to save. Scroll down to just below the photo and select the Save to Album button. Your photo is saved to the Device Album in the Camera application.
* Text message character counter – As you compose a text message, you can see a running count of the characters you’ve typed against the message character limit. You’ll also see the number of SMS messages required to send what you’ve typed. For example, if you see “2 140/146” below the message you’re composing, it means you’ve typed enough characters to require two text messages. It also tells you that in the second message you’ve typed 140 characters against the limit of 146 characters.

Note: Not all characters count the same. Some characters count as two and therefore decrease how many characters you’re allowed in any one message. Also, the message limit varies depending on how many messages you’ve typed. Check the count/limit indicator (e.g., 140/146) to see where you stand.

Thanks to Brandon for the heads-up

It’s 2007, 3 months away from June. If TMobile is on track with the (seemingly more and more confirmed) roadmap, then we wouldn’t be surprised to see a prototype Sidekick NG, aka Sidekick 3 RAZR, out in the field. “Moonrock” wrote us today to tell us that she may have seen one. She was on a ferry, coming into Seattle (near Bellevue, WA which is TMobile headquarters!) when she saw what she thought was a black Sidekick 3 at first. She writes “I saw two girls leaving the ferry, one had a sk3, the other looked like it was just a black sk3, then I was trying to get a better look cause I realized there ISNT a black sk3 and realized it was a sk looking device that was super small.” She says it was “black, small, looked like the drawing.” We asked her if she might have mistaken it for a Diane Von Furstenberg Limited Edition, and she said that it wasn’t, because “it was very small.” Unfortunately she didn’t get any pictures and didn’t bother the girl with the device for more details, but says she will keep an eye out for it. We’ll let you know if we hear anything else of course.

No, it’s not the Sidekick 4. And it’s not another Sidekick 3, but more like a Hiptop II with less hardware features and a Sidekick 3 OS. Sharp is still the manufacturer on this one, so it’s not the Motorola device we’re guessing is in the works. It sounds like this is going to be targeted at people who don’t want to drop the cash on the full feature set of a Sidekick 3. Rumor has it that it will be missing a camera (good for those in high security jobs), no miniSD card, and of course no MP3 player since there’s no storage. That’s about all we’ve heard so far. No word on whether it will be carried by TMobile, or what it will be named. We doubt it will be a Sidekick, or even a Sidekick Light, but you can bet the OS is probably similar since that’s what Danger banks on. We’ve heard that the hardware is similar, however with a different screen (lower resolution cause it’s cheaper). We’re still digging for details past that.

FCC Link

While not as exciting as a new device or something, we have heard that Danger has received some funding from Sharp. How much and what they plan to do with this money is anyone’s guess. But it’s just another sign that Danger is still hard at work.

from wirelessweek.com

Anyone that has an @tmail.com more than likely has received some spam (or else you’re very lucky). With the Sidekicks there is currently no support for filtering so most of the time it’s just a daily delete of spam. There weren’t many solutions to this problem currently other than “put up with it” or “tell T-Mobile to change your email address”. But now, thanks to Troy Phillips there is a new fix to the spam epidemic on the Sidekick.

Troy has written an application that basically logs into your TMail account and filters the email for you based on a few pre-set rules, a whitelist (email addresses to always accept from), and a blacklist (email addresses to reject). It won’t wipe anything out completely, it will just drop it in the Trash where you can periodically go in and check to see if anything accidentally got tagged as spam. It’s a bit of a hack, and might not be something for the “non-techie” Sidekick users, but at least it’s something while we wait for Danger to implement spam filtering.

More info and download at https://sidekick.troyphillips.com/

Now we all know that Danger has always said they’re not a hardware vendor and that they’re more interested in selling their OS and service. However, the past 4 years there has only been ‘one’ device with multiple revisions, the hiptop/sidekick. Nothing too different, just the evolution of this one device. With a large amount of hiring going on, it looks like Danger is finally gearing up to take the Danger OS and backend onto new devices. With some close scrutinization of Danger’s website there are quite a few clues popping up that make us think something big is on the horizon. Take a look at some of the job postings on there. A few snippets from the current job openings that strike us as interesting:

Senior Software Engineer
* Integrate 2.5 and 3G wireless radio protocol stacks to Danger’s OS platform, especially L2 and L3.
* Write device drivers for new peripherals.

Software Engineer
* Configuration Engineering work for assisting in the launch of new wireless operators and/or upgrading existing partners, consisting of the following:
* HiptopSDE (Service Deliver Engine) customization.
* Web interface customization.

OS Engineer
As a member of the Firmware group, duties would involve bringing up Danger OS on new hardware. Tasks may include writing drivers for devices such as lcd, keyboard, timers, trackballs, etc. Other tasks may include working with communications stacks such as TCP/IP, telephony, Bluetooth, and USB. The position would involve working with other groups such as hardware, libraries, and applications.

That’s great and all, but what sort of devices you say? Check this out:

Motorola Ventures is now listed on Danger’s Investors page. Oh, and remember that roadmap from awhile back?

Yeah, that one. Motorola, Sidekick Razr… See where I’m going with this? So to sum it up:
– The Motorola link on the investors page
– Job postings mentioned above that specify new hardware
– Job postings that mention video
– The roadmap being pretty darn accurate so far about devices

Do we have a Motorola device powered by Danger on its way?

By now, we bet everyone’s wondering what the image at the beginning of this post is of. Well, here’s a little kicker for all this. Dusting off the archives (before hiptop3.com was even around) we’ve found some old patents that Danger filed for back in 2004. Could it be that these design ideas are still bouncing around the halls of Danger? Looks like it would fit in well with the RAZR line. Check these out: