We’ve been hoping for an official Twitter application for the Sidekick for a long time now. Those of us with developer keys have enjoyed different Twitter applications on our Sidekicks, but had to endure complaints from all our friends who were stuck with SMS and the browser for their Twitter fun. It looks like in the near future these friends won’t be complaining anymore as an official MSDanger app for the Sidekick appears to be on it’s way.

Clue #1: We’ve seen and heard rumors about an internal Twitter application at Danger that was being developed.
Clue #2: Developer apps for Twitter have not made any progress towards getting into the catalog and several have been made. You would think with a service like Twitter that is growing more and more popular everyday that a cheap application for it would make it’s way into the catalog.
Clue #3: Remember that screenshot from the online survey that mentioned Twitter?
Clue #4: There’s a whole lot of people Twittering from an application that’s only identifying itself as “hiptop”. Several of these people are known to be Danger employees.

So, we’re almost positive you’ll be seeing a Twitter application on the Sidekick LX 2009 / Blade when it drops. We also hope that MSDanger offers a Twitter application in the catalog (or via OTAu) for those users on the older devices. It would definitely round out the social networking capabilities of the Sidekick.

Follow Hiptop3.com on Twitter.

We got the above image in our inbox. The reader sending it in danielle says she was taking a survey about smart phones on QuizPoints and was presented with this one. Here are the specs it lists in the photo:

Social Networking Suite of Apps
– Facebook
– MySpace w/ video upload
– Twitter
– YouTube Mobile Access via browser

GPS Location Based Search
– Turn by Turn Navigation
– Microsoft Live Local Search and Maps

Content Creation
– Blog publishing, editing, and management client
– Photobucket Upload and Management
– Video recorder and upload to MySpace/Photobucket

Communications
– Signature Sidekick IM/SMS/E-mail Experience
– Microsoft Outlook/Exchange synchronization

Hardware
– Large (3.2 inch WVGA) screen with sharp 854×480 resolution
– Thin design
– 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and video recording
– Large QWERTY keyboard
– Expandable memory up to 8GB via MicroSD

Everything seems to match up with what a Sidekick LX 2009 would have. It mentions 3G, which is pretty much a given at this point. The introduction of Microsoft Live Search and maps makes a lot of sense since Microsoft now owns Danger. The addition of GPS (finally!) is also a nice complement to the maps and helps the Sidekick compete a little bit with the iPhone and other location-enabled devices. But I’m sure the thing that everyone is freaking out over now is the mention of YouTube mobile access. It’s probably the #1 request for the Sidekick by the majority of the users. It doesn’t seem that out of reach since the Sidekick can play video already, it just needs a way to get it from YouTube. None of the apps are groundbreaking, but they’re things that a lot of us would agree it would be nice to have on our Sidekick.

The hardware looks about right too. A 3.2MP camera isn’t the 5mp camera we hoped for, but it is a god bump up from the 2MP camera in the Sidekick 2008 (not to mention the 1.3MP in the LX). The screen is higher resolution (too early to start working on those new themes?) and of course the familiar keyboard is still there.

Is this the Sidekick Blade that we’ve been hearing whispers about? Hard to tell. We know that “Blade” is a codename and that internally (in software) it’s know as the “m3“. The “m2” was the Sidekick 3, so one would guess the “m3” would correlate to the elusive Sidekick 4 and a “large” upgrade in device. (FWIW, the Sidekick LX was the “m2-hd”) Could MSDanger be working on two devices? It’s very possible, but we don’t have anything to back this up or refute it yet.

So is this for real? We think so. At least we think it’s specs drawn up by someone official that is testing the water with consumers to see what they think. Whether it’s what we actually see in a device in the future, I’m not 100% sure. I think it definitely sounds like the next revision of the Sidekick LX. It’s not too ambitious, but does add a few of the most requested features. Seems to be the way that T-Mobile/MSDanger like to do things with the Sidekick.

An otherwise boring article posted on TWICE has one sentence that sparks a little bit of hope in Sidekick lovers. The article is about Personal Communications Devices (PCD), a cellphone marketing/distribution company. They work with manufacturers to get their devices out on the market. The interesting tidbit is:

In its 2009 product roadmap, PCD will continue to offer HTC-made phones, will offer a “couple” of new Sidekicks for T-Mobile, and plans a second-generation Quickfire multimedia phone for AT&T with a touchscreen and slide-out Qwerty keyboard.

A couple new Sidekicks for T-Mobile? Could this be multiple models? Maybe some Limited Editions? The Sidekick 2009? Details are of course slim, but we’ve already heard whispers of trial devices of the next Sidekick being out there.

(Thanks Mike!)

Sorry gang, looks like the rumors of a ZunePhone unveiling at CES next month have been squashed. Gizmodo is quoting Brian Seitz, the Group Manager of Zune as saying “No Zune phone at CES.” This doesn’t necessarily mean the ZunePhone doesn’t exist, just that it’s not coming to CES. Guess we get to keep on waiting to see what Microsoft and Danger have up their sleeves.

Rumor has it that the keynote at CES 2009 will be given by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, where he will officially unveil a new product that combines the features of the Zune with the Danger Sidekick handhelds. This is all according to Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities Research. He also says that there’s “some motion enhancement features” using an accelerometer in the device. I guess we’ll see what’s in store in a month!

via

We’ve seen a few articles in passing lately about how Microsoft is planning on unveiling a new mobile device. A lot of these articles are pointing toward it being a combination of Microsoft’s Zune technology with acquired Danger’s Sidekick technology. CNBC even goes as far as to give out a code name of “Pink”. Other articles point to it being powered by Nvidia technology, which we find hard to believe. But the Nvidia technology rumored to be used would “theoretically give the Microsoft device 720p video playback and advanced 3D visuals that are absent on other phones” (via). Details of course are still sketchy, but we’re hearing people talk of a announcement at the 3GSM conference in February 2009. No word on a release date though, and what carriers it would be available on. At this point we’re putting this high on the rumor list, as there aren’t many details.

Uh, oh, this doesn’t sound so good for our beloved DangerOS. From an article on Brighthand.com:

…Microsoft recently acquired Danger, Inc. as a way to widen its appeal to consumers. Danger is the company behind the Sidekick — a line of smartphones popular for their ease of use. Myerson indicated that its expertise will be used to make future versions of Windows Mobile more appealing to the average user.

Terry Myerson recently took over as the head of the Microsoft Mobile Communications Product Group. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the DangerOS will be scrapped and all work focused on Windows Mobile.

There’s an article over on CNet titled How Microsoft will compete with ‘free’ that talks about how Microsoft is adjusting to compete in the world of free software. There’s an interesting section on smartphones:

Lastly, smartphones. Ballmer tries to change the subject by suggesting Apple ought to license its iPhone OS as opposed to keeping it all to itself. Let’s skip over Microsoft’s proprietary Xbox and Zune software and, perhaps, the upcoming Danger smartphone. Danger, the maker of the Sidekick PDA, is the company Microsoft bought earlier this year,. Microsoft has been selling Windows Mobile licenses for close to eight years now. In the licensing business, the iPhone isn’t the real competition, Android is. How do you compete with a free smartphone OS, and a good one at that, which is supported by Google Cloud applications?

My guess is Steve Ballmer is working on a combined answer, one that is sketched before our very eyes already. Microsoft’s Live services are but a rehearsal for a much bigger act, Microsoft’s Cloud OS, sometimes called Strata. And, based on Microsoft’s own Cloud services, we’ll see a Danger-based smartphone, as proprietary as the Xbox and the iPod competitor Zune. Put another way, Microsoft’s future business model will borrow from Apple and Google, it will have two components: proprietary devices and “universal” Cloud services. And like its models, it will attempt to extract extra profits by nicely tying both components together. For example: iPods are tied to the iTunes service, Android phones might (we don’t know yet) better enjoy Google applications.

“upcoming Danger smartphone” ?!

Allow speculation to continue…

thanks for the tip Mike!

Tired of hearing about all your friends bragging about their 3G speeds? Well us Sidekick users won’t have to wait forever. We’ve heard from sources about the next Sidekick. We don’t have a release date yet, so start making your guesses, but we can almost guarantee you that it won’t be out this year. It’s Danger codename is “m3 Blade” and we hear that it will cut closer than ever before! For those that don’t remember, the Sidekick II was codenamed “m1” and the Sidekick 3 was “m2” so if you wanted to, you could call this the Sidekick 4 I guess. It’s also going to be 3G, which is no big surprise considering the enormous rollout of 3G coverage that T-Mobile has been doing. Other than that we’re speculating that it will have a better camera since we saw Sharp put out a 5MP camera awhile back. Last we heard there wasn’t GPS on it, but we’re hoping that will change. If you had your wishes, what do you want to see on the next Sidekick? (Other than YouTube support of course)

Just like last year we’ve uncovered some new domains registered by T-Mobile. Both SidekickMX.com and SidekickFX.com (as well as the .net, .org, etc) have been registered by T-Mobile. These domains were originally registered on February 2nd, 2008 but show that the information was updated on June 5th, 2008. Neither of the domains are actually pointed at a live website though. This could of course mean absolutely nothing. They could just have been other names that T-Mobile was considering for the Sidekick 2008/Gekko, or could they be new devices? We haven’t found any additional information to confirm one way or another yet, but thought we’d at least share the info and let anyone out there do a little detective work if they wanted.

Whois for sidekickmx.com
Whois for sidekickfx.com