Danger Sidekick


The Danger Sidekick was a disappointment to me

I bought a Danger Sidekick last October on the first day they were available and I was delighted with it. I bored all my friends showing them the cool things it could do. I really liked the idea of mobile email. The software showed some rough edges, but I was sure that they would be fixed in a software update that would come along soon.

Alas, the software update that I expected last November or December never arrived. The minor update that arrived in March fixed a serious bug but did nothing about the other small and large deficiencies: the PIM apps remained primitive, there were still arbitrary restrictions on the memory that the apps can use (20 notes tops, for example), there was still no alawys-BCC setting for outgoing mail, and so on.

Worse, as a result of the software update or for some other reason, the thing was less reliable than when I first got it. Even in areas with good signal, every couple of days it would spontaneously lose its connection and not re-aquire it until I rebooted it. There's much less value to a push email device if you have to keep checking to see if it's working.

The Sidekick arrived with version-1.0 deficiencies and hardly any of them were remedied in a year.

Then there's the issue of ssh client software. It was written by April , but someone refused to allow it to be distributed. And no one would say who or why. (I think it's available for the new version of the Sidekick.) They might have kept me as a subscriber if they had made it available sooner or even just said that it would be available.

So there were things that obviously needed fixing left un-fixed, and useful software written but withheld. By the time my contract was over, I was out of patience. That's not a company I want to do business with.

And that's the problem. Cory Doctorow and others have complained about "data ownership" issues but I think their complaints are misguided. There has never been any question about who has control of the device and the data in it: Danger and T-Mobile do. For that reason, the important question is whether or not they'll provide good service. A year ago, I had a lot of goodwill toward them and expected that they would. But over the course of a year, they successfully persuaded me othewise.

But I really like the idea of mobile email so I've gotten a Nokia 3650. The design is a little funkier than I wish it were and the graphics of the Symbian series 60 OS are reminiscent of Windows 3.1, but I like it a lot. It works with iSync on my OS X laptop so my address book was uploaded painlessly. Using Bluetooth, I can use it as a radio modem. The camera is fun, and the mail client will do APOP authentication, so I don't have to transmit my mail password in the clear. I do wish that Nokia would hire away some of Sony-Ericsson's industrial designers, but the things is a tool, not a fashion-accessory. That's what I keep telling myself.

Posted: Thu - November 13, 2003 at 09:14   Main   Category: 

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