We’ve done a lot of thinking the past few weeks in regards to custom themes/backgrounds on the Sidekick 3. Everyone and their brother knows about the undocumented but easily accessible custom themes feature on the Sidekick 3 now. We’ve even gone as far as to put up a site with with 4000+ Sidekick 3 themes submitted!

At the same time that we’re enjoying this customization, there’s a lot of talk about how the next OTA may disable this feature in order for TMobile to sell Sidekick users premade wallpapers. In all honesty, we’re hoping they’ll realize that for every custom made theme, that’s one more Sidekick 3 that will be pulled out of a pocket to show off to a friend. One more custom hinge sound that noone has ever heard on a phone that will draw the attention of strangers when you flip the screen.

Is it wrong to think that custom themes are a good thing, both for users of the Sidekick 3 as well as TMobile? With the new themes, we all get a chance to make the phone “ours” whether it means loading a background of Jay-Z, a pair of Nikes, Mariah Carey, Tron, or our geeky favorite, a light saber sound for the screen. In our opinion, this makes us even more devoted and attached to the glossy little gadget.

We borrowed this from Gizmodo:

Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like that was one boring party in NYC.

UPDATE: While there’s still no support for mp3 ringtones on the Sidekick 3, you CAN add mp3 ringtones to the new Sidekick LX 2009! You can download Sidekick friendly ringtones for the Sidekick LX 2009 over at Skringers.com

So everyone is clamoring for the ability to set MP3 ringtones. Let us start by saying, “Not gonna happen” (well at least not this way). Here’s the original info that was floating around the net (Don’t bother trying, it doesn’t work):

Hello everyone! My name is Melissa Trepan, and as well as working for Random House Canada, I am a software technician for Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the Blackberry family. Being in the handheld device “industry”, I’m very interested in my field of work, and after visiting New York City last week, I’m very interested by the T-Mobile Sidekick 3. I understand that many of you have complaints about MP3 files for the player. sonicBOOM, not being ‘transferable’ into the ring tone application on your Sidekick 3. Working with Blackberry’s latest 8700 series, I’ve been trained to have a feel for the whole MP3 file transfer, as it was implemented on our newest devices.
Well, enough of the long intro! Let’s get started!
What you’ll need to begin:
Your T-Mobile Sidekick 3 (fully charged, ready to go)
A working USB cable designed for the Sidekick 3.
An hour or more to get this done.
Unlike the Blackberry 7290/8700/07), after inspecting the OS COD. files, it’s got what we call at RIM, a “ventilation” file, which is blocking the transfer of mp3 files from your sonicBOOM/MiniSD, to the actual hardware of the Sidekick 3 – keep in mind, that all of your MP3s aren’t actually “ON” your Sidekick, they’re just temporarily there, and housed by your SD card.
The “ventilation” file is known as VENDOR.XML , and is (almost) encrypted into the device – this is something that Danger obviously does not understand, because the VENDOR.XML is on the Sidekick 2/Hiptop 2 as well. Throughout the rest of this tutorial, I will refer to that file as Vendor.
The Vendor file is completely pointless (other than blocking out certain options). This file HAS to be deleted in order to transfer files to your Sidekick 3. If you have a blackberry, you may know what I’m talking about. Often on blackberries, the system will crash to a “JVM” error, most commonly errors 102, 103, 507 and 544. To fix this on a blackberry, the Vendor file must be removed as well.
Lets get deleting! Now, you’re going to need a device that is specifically designed for Blackberry devices, Blackberry JDE Component Package v4.1.0 by Research In Motion. This is also known as Javaloader. This is not designed for the Sidekick, but it will work. This can be downloaded at https://www.blackberry.com/developers/downloads/jde/index.shtml , click the first option, Blackberry Java Development Environment v4.1 .
Once downloaded, you will be prompted to install the software to your computer.
Now, the satisfying part – lets delete Vendor! If you chose to run JDE upon finishing the download, close it now. Click the following on a Windows operated PC:
Start>All Programs>Research In Motion>Blackberry JDE Component Package v4.1.0>JDE Components Commands Prompt.
You’ve just opened the Command Prompt, kind of like a DOS Prompt that some of you may be familiar with. For those of you that are a little intimidated by it’s look and feel, don’t worry, this is simple. What we’re going to do now is tell the prompter that we want to delete all ventilation files (there’s only one, Vendor). We’re going to do this by simply typing in the following:
Javaloader -usb wipe
This is going to wipe the ventilation file on your device clean, i.e., no more Vendor.
Press enter.
You’ll notice the Sidekick 3 and computer communicating. Don’t worry, you’ve done everything right so far.
Now, we’re going to need to download the Blackberry Desktop Manager, which is also compatible with most handheld devices. We can get this through the T-Mobile SE site, https://software.se.t-mobile.com/ . Scroll down until you see “8700g”, and download the Desktop Manager version 4.1.1.12. You will be redirected to www.T-Mobileapps.com where you will be prompted to download.
Once downloaded, close and restart. Now, click Options>Connection settings>select USB>Connect.
Once connected, minimize.
You’re almost done! Now you’re going to transfer your MP3 files to your Sidekick 3. We downloaded 3 files from a file share program called BearShare (this is not required, it’s used to download music etc). Save the selected MP3 files to My Documents. Make sure that they are MP3 files.
Now, back to Blackberry Desktop Manager. Click on Application loader. You should get a message saying that no additional software was found. This means that you need to scan manually for your files. Go to Add. From My Documents, select the MP3 files you wish to transfer. Click next, and voila! When we tested this, we tried to transfer 40 MP3 files to the Sidekick, and only 32 transferred due to space restrictions. You may want to delete some of your default Sidekick 3 ringers to make space, if you need it.
Disconnect your Sidekick 3 from the USB cable.
The selected files should appear in your Ring tone library in a name format like the files we transferred, which appeared as “SKI_Jealousy_Paris_Hilton”, which is “Jealousy” by Paris Hilton. After setting this as your phone’s ringer, you’re DONE!
This process takes a while, but once completed once, it should take you only a few seconds to transfer additional files.
Now there’s something you don’t learn at Danger High! Good luck! Happy transferring!

And here’s the word from appletech as posted on the hiptop.com forums:

Just a little note to yall that the recently posted MP3/Ringtone “hack” thing is nothing more than an elaborate prank by a troller to get your hopes up and waste time.

There’s absolutely no way the trick will load an mp3 on the device. The procedure won’t even work on a blackberry. The vendor.XML file is a PC-side file not a device side. There’s nothing we can find at all with respect to the term “ventilation” and a blackberry, and that javaloader cmd will indeed wipe a blackberry device but the tool won’t talk to an Sidekick at all.

The good news you won’t brick your device trying to do so. We’ll keep banging away at the app to make sure though because if you do manage to screw up your device with this “hack”, Tmobile won’t replace your device and you’ll be out a few hundred dollars.

But its a good way to make someone kill 3 hours trying

Does this randomhouse person really work for RIM? I doubt it. Looks more like a recently banned user, kickside2, who attempted to start a bashappletech website. His/her blogger profile ID even was “RIM!”, the company randomhouse claims to work for. Coincidence? I think not.

And why would a RIM software tech work for a book publishing company (Random house Publishing) anyway?

So again folks, don’t waste your time. Nothing good, or bad, will come from this little prank…only a few hours of wasted time.

We apologize for the lack of updates in the last few days. We’ve been playing, proking, and prodding around our Sidekick 3 non-stop since Friday.
With our exploration of the Sidekick 3 and its secrets, we’ve come to realize that there is a ton of functionality that isn’t even being taken of advantage yet. While we can’t reveal these details due to the NDA agreement with Danger, we can say you guys will be very happy with the device within the next few months.
So far we’ve heard three main complaints, (a) ringtones/apps/games, (b) slow browser, (c) battery life.

Ringtones/Apps/Games
Like most people we were a little disappointed to see that apps and ringtones aren’t transferring over, but we kind of understand from a business perspective, it is a new phone. People complaining about the lack of apps and games should be patient. With the Sidekick 3 there were a lot of changes in the OS that require work on these older applications in order to make them work right. Even the splash screen for all apps has to be changed! We hope that all games and apps will be ported over soon, but ultimately it’s up to the programmers to do this. The lack of ringtones, well that’s just T-Mobile and we’re not happy either having to pay for the same ringtones that came free on the Sidekick II.

Slow Browser
Like everyone else we had some difficulty with keeping G and loading webpages the first few days. This has gotten a lot better in the last 24 hours or so. when a webpage does load, boy does it scream! I was so used to switching over to AIM or email while waiting for a webpage to load, and now with some pages I don’t even have time for that. Keep in mind that this is a new device, and I’m sure it’s putting some strain on Danger’s servers. Give them some time to tweak the servers and I’m sure things will be running smoother and faster than ever.

Battery Life
I’ve seen in passing some comments about battery life. Since we haven’t done any conclusive testing, we’re not sure how much merit is in these complaints. We do recommend you charging the battery fully, then letting it drain all the way, rinse & repeat. This will help condition the battery to get the full amount of life out of it. If anyone wants to do some serious battery testing and has results, let us know. We’re talking “I unplugged with 100% battery at 7:23pm, received a phone call for 23 minutes, browsed the web for 15, etc.” type research, not “uhh yeah, it lasted for 5 hours.” Additionally, there are companies already working on new extended life batteries, so those should be out soon.

To wrap things up, we’re very happy with the Sidekick 3. It has lived up to most of its hype, and will only continue to get better. To all those that have received the blessings from UPS and have received their Sidekick 3, we hope you’re enjoying it! For everyone waiting on UPS or the 10th, hang in there.

Before you comment on this post, think about what you’re posting. If it relates directly to this info, go ahead, but if it’s unrelated please head over to the forums and post it where it’s easier to carry on a conversation. Thanks!

You guys asked, and appletech was kind enough to answer. Here are some of the most common and most interesting questions we received (cleaned up and combined as necessary):

1. What features does the Sidekick 3 support that TMobile has chosen to leave out? MMS? Save as Ringtone in email? Etc.

The “Save as Ringtone” email feature and MMS application are not present as before. The new “Record a Ringtone” feature has also been removed.

2. Can MP3s be used as ringtones?

No. All ringtones will come from the catalog

3. Can the Sidekick 3 be used as a modem for a laptop?

No.

4. There is no support for video capture/playback/streaming videos/etc, but are there any plans to implement this in a future
OTAu (Over-The-Air Update)?

If there are any, I’m not at liberty to share that information. Keep in mind, any future features would be up to your carrier.

5. Can MP3s downloaded from iTunes be used on the Sidekick 3?

No. Any MP3s bought online that have DRM Encryption will *not* play on the Sidekick 3.

6. Can you listen to MP3s over a Bluetooth headset?

No. MP3s will play only over the device speaker or through a wired stereo headset (included I believe)

7. What are the plans for release in other markets? Suncom? UK? Would a Sidekick 3 purchased from the US work in these markets?

I’m not allowed to discuss plans for future carriers. A Sidekick 3 bought from TMobile USA would need to be unlocked for use on another carrier, but as before you would get only Phone/SMS service. Data is tied to the original carrier.

8. How much faster is the web browser compared to the Sidekick 2?

It’s definently faster. Depending on your EDGE coverage and network traffic in your area, browsing I found at times to be at least 50% faster than the SK2.

9. What downloadable apps will be available at launch time?

Don’t know.

10. What was motivation in the switch to a different kind of keyboard?

I probably guess to avoid all the problems the SK2 had with keyboards peeling, keys breaking, letters rubbing off etc… The new keyboard virtually eliminates all those problems with a more solid piece of hardware.

11. Are Danger’s servers prepared for the large increase in usage?

Yup. I don’t see any problems coming up with the introduction of EDGE for browsing. There’s plenty server power there already for the job and more.

12. What will happen with regard to Mac syncing? Will the current Missing Sync still work? Will it still be necessary?

Syncing will happen just as before. The Sync apps themselves (PC & Mac) are what determines what data is synced from your computer. They will continue to sync to the DI via the internet.

13. Does the Bluetooth support for the Sidekick 3 include being able to sync data (contacts, calendar, mail, mp3’s) with a Bluetooth-enabled computer (PC and/or Mac)? Or is it strictly limited to support for Bluetooth headset devices?

Bluetooth is limited to the usage of a Bluetooth headset and the sharing of Vcards only.

14. What is the story with the screen? Is it the same screen as the Sidekick 2? Has the resolution/color depth changed at all?

The sk3 screen is the exact same screen as the sk2.

15. Is the audio port a shared mp3/stereo and headset port? Can I use regular headphones with it? Does it require a dongle? If I’m using regular headphones, does the phone think there’s a headset plugged in and mess up routing the audio?

The headset/headphone jack is 2.5mm headset jack. Your device will come with a stereo headset for phone use and for listening to mp3s. They don’t sound all that bad either. Give them a shot before running out a buying something else. If you wanna use standard headphone, you’ll need a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor.

16. Will it be possible to create custom wallpapers, ringtones, etc?

Doesn’t appear to be. All content looks be to catalog purchases only.

17. What is the limit of the size of the miniSD card?

At this time, we say 2GB because that is the current largest MiniSD available. There’s nothing on the device imposing a limit, so larger cards should work. However, until one exists that can be physically tested there is no 100% guarantee. I’d say 95% the only limit the available sizes.

18. Is there going to be a trade-in program like the Sidekick 2 had?

Doesn’t look like it. Current info shows it’s just gonna be a straight upgrade.

19. Have there been any improvements to the browser itself?

Other than the EDGE browsing speeds, the browser is roughly the same.

20. Will the applications, games, ringtones, etc. purchased on the Sidekick 2 get moved over to the Sidekick 3?

All games and applications will need to be repurchased for the SK3. Ringtones I think will transfer over as those are not device/OS specific like the apps.

21. What color is the backlight on the keyboard?

It’s an orange color. Here are some pictures of it:

22. Can the chargers from the Sidekick 2 be used with the Sidekick 3?

Yes. The charges are interchangeable between the two.

23. What can be done with the USB port?

The USB will allow you to mount the SK3 on your computer to transfer MP3s the MiniSD card. You can also transfer pics you took and saved to the card to your PC. The SD card mounts as a standard external drive (like a USB Thumbdrive, or an iPod), so you can really store anything you can think of on the card for whatever reason. Of course, they won’t be able to be read by the SK3, only stored.

24. Will you be able to view buddy info in AIM? Can you change the “via hiptop” info?

No and No still.

25. Will there be limited edition Sidekicks, like the Mr Cartoon orJuicy SK2s? Different color Sidekicks?

Unknown. If there are, Danger/Tmobile does not pre-announce launch dates or share details about upcoming products

26. Does playing MP3s have an effect on the speed of other applications?

Nope. You can multi-task as usual. I have notice any kind of lag due to playing MP3s in the background.

27. How long is the battery life on average?

It all depends on your usage of course, but I’m averaging about 1 1/2 days on a charge with constant IM/YIM/MSN and Terminal sessions running. I usually charge nightly anyway.

28. Does the Sidekick 3 have full IMAP support, including folders?

It appears that IMAP support is still limited as before. This is more of a server side issue than device, as the server is the one interacting with the mail account and just pushing data to your device.

29. Do you like your job?

Of course!

—-

A HUGE thanks to appletech for taking the time out of doing battle with the overwhelmed hiptop.com forums to answer these questions for us. 🙂 You rock!

Discuss This Story Here

It’s your last chance to get in your questions about the Sidekick 3 for “Ask an Appletech.” We’ll be gathering the questions together, weeding through the duplicates, and picking out the good ones tonight. So get your question in before 11:59pm June 26th! Send them to admin@hiptop3.com

Anh Nguyen has a great recap of the Sidekick 3 launch party, complete with photos. Go check it out here. He also has a review of the device up. For those of you that don’t like to read, we’ll go through and give a brief summary when we’re not at work. 🙂

The short of it:
The Sidekick 3 release party was held in Hollywood, CA at Hollywood Palladium, where the theme was “Play, Laugh, Dream, Celebrate.” It sounds like it had a very carnival/playground feel too it, with games, cotton candy, scantily clad women, slides, and swings. The celebrities were all out, with attendees such as: Jose Conseco, Aaron Carter, Taylor Cole, Kristin Bell, Rachel Bilson, Sarah Carter, Christopher Knight, Adrianne Curry, Carlos Mencia, Travis Barker, Mark Hoppus, Shane West, Chris Masterson, Laura Prepon, Haylie and Hillary Duff, Kristin Cavalerri, Serena Williams, Marques Houston, Vida Guerra, J.C. Chasez, Kelly Monaco, Christina Milian, Jadakiss, Jason Mewes, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Misha Barton, Jessica Simpson, Eva Longoria, Kim Kardashian, Mike Tyson, and some totally random basketball players. DJ AM provided the tunes from the turntables.

There were about 200 people in attendance, and the whole block was closed off. There was also an ice sculpture of the Sidekick 3, and if anyone has good pics of this, we’d love to see them! No idea if there were gift bags and if so what was included in them. If you have a few minutes, definitely go check out Anh’s write-up, as well as photos of all the celebs at his site.

Remember that link we told you to watch out for awhile back? The manual for the Sidekick 3 / Hiptop 3 is now up on Danger’s site. We haven’t had a chance to go through it in depth, as we’re on vacation and rushing to catch up on all the news that happened while we were away from the keyboard. Trusty Hiptop3.com readers, let us know if you find any new info in there.

One thing we did notice is the name of the music player. While TMobile is calling it the Music Player (as we saw on the actual device this weekend), the Sidekick manual is calling it the SonicBOOM Music Player, and it looks much cooler than what we remember. Then again, when we got a chance to play with it, it was on a beach and it was dark.

The manual also mentions MMS (Multimedia Messaging for those that aren’t into the whole brevity thing). As in the past, it looks like TMobile is denying their Sidekick users the joys of MMSing, but the Sidekick 3 does have the capability.

And one last thing the manual reminded us of was the new functionality in the camera as far as increasing the quality of the photos taken. You can now set photo size, flash, exposure, sharpness, fluorescent light filtering, and JPEG quality (compression).

Let us know if you guys notice anything else of interest in the manual by posting in the comments!

Manuals, photos, internal photos, all sorts of stuff are available here
Some quick links for you:
External Photos
Internal Photos
Test Setup Photos
Reference Guide Cover
Sidekick 3 Start Guide
Sidekick 3 Reference Guide (part 1)
Sidekick 3 Reference Guide (part 2)

The manual pages look very familiar. Some interesting observations:
– The SonicBOOM manual page we received matches up almost exactly with the “Music Player” page, so looks like a name change. 🙁
– No video support 🙁
– There’s a considerable section on the “Danger Service Privacy Notice” and what sort of information they collect and share.
– Yes, USB 1.1, not 2.0
– MP3s play off the miniSD card
– EDGE support!
– Bluetooth (as if noone saw that coming)

and I’m sure our commenters will have some other things to point out…

The FCC has updated the page and it looks like we’ll get a chance to see some official documentation, photos, and more very soon. Right now it’s returning a server error, but hopefully that will get straightened out soon.