Sounds like the Sidekick 3 is getting a Over The Air (OTA) update to upgrade the radio firmware. Doesn’t look like anything significant or major improvements, but all you Sidekick 3 owners may see it popping up on your device soon. I assume it’s rolling out to the pioneer group first, which is basically a small (random) subset of the Sidekick 3 users. As long as that rolls out without significant problems it will start being sent out to everyone.
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!”
Grant Duval, from The Connection (a student newspaper in Sacramento, CA), has put together an editorial titled “What does your cell phone say about you?” In it he mentions Sidekick users:
Sidekick owners have a ton of friends. Even their phone is their “Sidekick.”
People who own Sidekicks are addicted to their friends, not the ones they are with, but the ones at the receiving end of their witty texts.
Sidekick owners are young and may or may not idolize Jay-Z. They are also highly lazy. If spelling out words without using abbreviations and predictive text is too hard, what else is too hard? Getting a job? Paying taxes? I’m on to you Sidekick owners.
Personally I would have said Lil Wayne (based on the number of Lil Wayne Sidekick themes out there) and I’d disagree that we’re lazy and don’t have jobs. How else could we afford such expensive devices? What do you guys think?
If you live in Boston (or anywhere else for that matter) you may want to pause from IMing and texting your friends every now and then to make sure you aren’t about to be robbed! Bostonist is reporting that Sidekick users who are distracted by typing are a target for phone thieves. WBZ TV reports that 23 Sidekicks have been snatched in the last two months from users riding the T (Boston’s subway system).
“Basically they have their heads down,” said Transit Police Sgt Michael Rutledge. “They’re not paying attention to their surroundings and people are taking advantage of that opportunity. When the train doors or bus doors open they’ll snatch the cell phone or Sidekick and run off with it.”
So keep an eye out next time you get sucked into an AIM conversation with the hottie you met last night at the club. Before you know it you may have lost her screenname AND your phone.
Got a Hiptop 3 and a provider that allows MMS like Telstra? Then Viva has written something you might be interested in, how to create your own mp3 ringtones. We’ve posted it here so that it’s preserved for future usage.
UPDATE: If you’re looking to just download Sidekick ringtones for the Sidekick LX 2009, you can get them over at Skringers.com!
Some people will be getting the Sidekick LX for Christmas this year, while others will be getting the Sidekick Slide, but one lucky lady will be getting a one of a kind Sidekick 3 for her Christmas present. A Sidekick 3 made of wood. The creator says that the Sidekick 3 is the favorite phone of his lady friend. However, he also mentions that he did not make the screen flippable because “she’s not THAT special”. *ouch* It looks like it will be a bit bulky for her pocket, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
Looks like Danger/T-Mobile have pulled the famous MySpace app from their catalog. Is this perhaps so they can fix the buggy application that has everyone using the browser still? There have been numerousposts on poweredbydanger.com with people complaining about the poor performance and bugs as well as necessary workarounds to fix conflicts with themes downloaded from sk3themes.com, sklxthemes.com, and skslidethemes.com. Up until the app was pulled, you were able to download and install it for free and continue using it until the end of December. After that you would be charged a recurring monthly fee of $1.99. Did Danger/TMobile just treat this freebie as a beta test for an app that wasn’t quite ready for the market but needed to be pushed out in order to compete with the Helio Ocean on paper? Here’s hoping they squash the bugs and deliver a 100% app by the end of the month.
UPDATE: The MySpace App is back in the catalog. No idea why it disappeared briefly.
Motorola and T-Mobile announced last night a new Sidekick, the Slide, which is the thinnest and lightest ever. It’s got the well-known slide out QWERTY keyboard, a trackball for easy navigating, an MP3 player and a 1.3 megapixel camera (yeah, we weren’t impressed with that either). You can use the Push email or the Yahoo IM to keep in touch on the move, surf the interweb and thanks to T-Mobile’s Web’n’Walk packages it won’t cost you the earth.
Shiny Shiny also reports it will be in stores on November 9th. No prices are listed however.