I was one of the first Sidekick customers, long before the MS buyout. It was an amazing email/texting device, far easier and more comfortable to use than a Blackberry. Plus the web browsing was decent, and the UI was simple and elegant. All in all, a really cool phone.
Unfortunately, the first generation of hardware was super flaky. I had five of them die on me in a year, often failing within weeks. Since there wasn't any PC sync tool, the only thing that saved my bacon was the server-side data model. When a phone died, I'd get a replacement, drop in the SIM card and all my stuff would be there same as always.
Back in the day, there was no data sync with your PC. I think they eventually released Outlook syncronization, but most consumers don't use Exchange/Outlook. I would guarantee that a huge number of Sidekick owners (most? all?) have never had any of their phone data anywhere but the Danger servers.
To make matters worse, the Sidekick becomes kind of a brick when the servers are down. I can see a lot of people resetting their device because it's suddenly become unresponsive, just expecting their data to magically come back from the server.
I was a loyal Sidekick user right up until the day the first gen iPhone launched. It really was a fantastic device with the always on AIM, server side re-rendering of websites to optimize them for the device and one of the best physical keyboards I have used to this date.
If I remember correctly, Mark Cuban was a sidekick fanatic. I wonder what his reaction to this debacle is.
Server side re-rendering of websites?? Sounds like wide-spread support for that would be lacking... I'm sure as the Sidekick gained traction, more web sites adopted its special rendering requirements as you mention, but in the beginning, things must have been rough!
Disclosure - I've never owned a Sidekick (and know little about them, other than they are apart of Microsoft's 3 screens and a cloud strategy, yet they don't run Windows Mobile (??)).
i'm pretty sure he's talking about servers run by danger that re-render other websites. those other websites don't know or care that they are being presented in such a fashion.
I was one of the first Sidekick customers, long before the MS buyout. It was an amazing email/texting device, far easier and more comfortable to use than a Blackberry. Plus the web browsing was decent, and the UI was simple and elegant. All in all, a really cool phone.
Unfortunately, the first generation of hardware was super flaky. I had five of them die on me in a year, often failing within weeks. Since there wasn't any PC sync tool, the only thing that saved my bacon was the server-side data model. When a phone died, I'd get a replacement, drop in the SIM card and all my stuff would be there same as always.
Back in the day, there was no data sync with your PC. I think they eventually released Outlook syncronization, but most consumers don't use Exchange/Outlook. I would guarantee that a huge number of Sidekick owners (most? all?) have never had any of their phone data anywhere but the Danger servers.
To make matters worse, the Sidekick becomes kind of a brick when the servers are down. I can see a lot of people resetting their device because it's suddenly become unresponsive, just expecting their data to magically come back from the server.
This is an unmitigated disaster.