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?
A topic of conversation was brought up a couple times while I was “on tour” with the T-Mobile/Grammy Concerts. What would you like to see on the Sidekick the most?/How could it be improved? I conveyed some of my own thoughts and wishful thinking (GPS and Google Maps). But I want to open it up to you guys. I can’t guarantee this will have any impact on the future of the Sidekick obviously, but I’m curious to see what everyone out there thinks the Sidekick (LX or Slide) needs. Drop your thoughts in the comments!
The blogs are abuzz with rumors of T-Mobile finally launching a 3G network here in the US. According to TmoNews, New York will be the first city to get the coveted high-speed connections in May. Another 24 cities will also be outfitted with 3G in the coming months. Of course this is all rumor and not confirmed, so take it with a grain of salt. And it means jack squat for us Sidekick users, until a 3G version of the Sidekick comes out. But with T-Mobile supporting 3G in the near future, that means there is more motivation for them to get out a 3G version of the Sidekick in order to keep that market going. Don’t get your hopes up yet, I’m sure the dust from the Microsoft acquisition of Danger will have to settle first.
Here’s the list of 25 cities to get 3G first according to TmoNews:
New York City
Austin
NJ and Long Island
Las Vagas
Minneapolis
Miami
Dallas
Chicago
Houston
Philadelphia
Denver
Detroit
Orlando
Kansas city
Atlanta
Los Angeles
New England
Portland
Sacramento
San Diego
Seattle
Washington DC
San Francisco
Birmingham
Memphis
Tampa
Phoenix
According to TmoNews (an unofficial blog about T-Mobile) the new Sidekick Slide color is going to officially be called “Scarlet” and should be available May 15th. They’ve got what looks like to be an internal memo about it.
A lot of the tech blogs have been buzzing about the Nintendo emulator that runs on the Sidekick. Here’s the real scoop. Yes, it exists and you can play Nintendo games on the Sidekick 3/LX/Slide as evidenced by the video above. It’s slow and more of a proof-of-concept sort of thing rather than a truly viable gaming application. It was basically taking an existing Java NES emulator (Vampant) and wrapping it for loading on the Sidekick since the Sidekick OS supports java. No, it is not going to make it into catalog unless T-Mobile gets real friendly with Nintendo and the license holders of all the roms that you would want to load. The application is a developer app that is only available to Sidekick developers. So basically if you don’t know how to write java, you’ll never get to load it on your Sidekick. When asked for comment, the developer simply stated “HOLLA!”
There’s a video that proves its existence (or at least a prototype) and now BGR is reporting that the Sidekick Slide is slated for a late May/early June release from T-Mobile. They’ve also got the above image, which may just be a color-shifted version of the purple Sidekick Slide we all know.
Looks like the Motorola booth had a red Sidekick Slide on display this year at CTIA 2008. No word yet on when it will hit market (if it even will). I know a lot of people quoted the purple color as being a reason they steered away from the Slide. In my personal opinion the red looks sexy, and I’d totally rock
it. Click here for the full video of the tour of the Motorola booth.
Some keen eyes have spotted what may be an icon for the next Sidekick ID in the Catalog. On the Sidekick LX, if you go into the Theme section of the catalog and look at the newest themes, you’ll see that the phone icon is different. (Or if you don’t want to open the catalog, compare the phone icon in the first image above to the familiar icon in the second one) It’s yellow around the edges as if it has bumpers, but it has a wider screen than the normal SKiD, one that looks more like a Sidekick LX screen. My first thought was, it’s just an LX with yellow plastic pieces. But if you look close enough (I know, we’re examining like 10 pixels) you can see that the yellow part does not match up where you would replace the pieces on a Sidekick LX. Could we be seeing a new version of the Sidekick iD coming out soon? Did someone slip up and take screenshots on a new iD since it would have the same resolution as the LX if it was sharing a theme? We’ll let you guys know what we find.
The Boy Genius Report received a tip that Deutsche Telekom (aka T-Mobile) might be spreading its reach into Canada sometime in the future. This is totally in the rumor category, so take it with a grain of salt of course. Here’s what they’re reporting:
* Deutsche Telekom has been pre-approved for a financing and protocol agreement which will allow them to introduce T-Mobile to the Canadian market (subject to restrictions in all provinces except Ontario during a 6, 12 and 18 month trial period that expires in 2010), and also pre-approves them for testing roaming, cell tower reception and international data agreements.
* The person heading up the Canadian division of Deutsche Telekom will be Canadian, in compliance with the Canadian Business Ethics law
* Deutsche Telekom already owns the name T-Mobile in Canada under a US Parent Office international exchange program.
* They plan to launch T-Mobile in Canada in 2009.
* Currently, as we all know, Rogers is the only GSM game in town. With T-Mobile’s entrance into the Canadian market, data rates are going to plummet quickly. DT also plans to introduce an unlimited BlackBerry plan to the Canadaian market to be priced at $75/month. Basically telling Rogers to go screw themselves.
* T-Mobz Canada is set to offer many of the devices we’re used to seeing here in the U.S. like the Sidekick line and T-Mobile’s HTC products. I guess that’s bye bye Fido Sidekicks?
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft crazy-guy CEO, has made some comments on the future of Danger, now that Microsoft s buying them. He say:
“The Danger acquisition is really about building up an application and service aspect on top of our Windows Mobile platform. Danger is really a service application experience and we want to make sure we get that in market on a great set of phones.”
Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good for the DangerOS that we’ve all come to know and love. Maybe there’s hope that they’ll keep developing it for a little bit longer, but are the Sidekick’s days numbered? Microsoft definitely sounds like their interested in the over-the-air delivery of updates and applications, more so than the incredibly easy and intuitive user interface and hardware. It’s too early to tell, but we hope that the line of Danger devices doesn’t disappear. (How’s that for alliteration, eh?)
