The Sidekick: A Revolutionary Phone that Changed the Game

As a teenager growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I had the privilege of experiencing one of the most iconic phones of all time - the Sidekick. Released by Danger, Inc., the Sidekick was a revolutionary device that made messaging on-the-go a viable and enjoyable experience. The phone's sleek design, swiveling screen, and innovative user interface made it an instant hit among young teenagers like myself.

The Sidekick's impact cannot be overstated. It was one of the first phones to popularize the concept of a personal digital assistant (PDA) on-the-go. Prior to its release, PDAs were bulky and clunky, but the Sidekick made them accessible to everyone. The phone's ability to sync with users' contacts and calendar made it an essential tool for anyone who wanted to stay organized on the go.

The Sidekick also paved the way for future smartphones. Its user-friendly interface and feature-rich functionality set the stage for later innovations like the iPhone and Android. Even Google, which acquired Android from Andy Rubin's company in 2005, was inspired by the Sidekick's success. The phone's impact can be seen in many modern devices that have followed in its footsteps.

The Sidekick also had a significant effect on the celebrity world. Celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Dwyane Wade were spotted using the phone, which became a status symbol among young people. Even high-end fashion brands like Diane Von Furstenberg and Juicy Couture partnered with Danger to create exclusive designs for the Sidekick. The phone's style and functionality made it a must-have accessory for anyone who wanted to stay connected.

However, the Sidekick also had its share of controversy. In 2004, the phone's security was breached when Paris Hilton's personal data was leaked from her Sidekick. Someone managed to hack into the device and access Hilton's contacts, photos, and other sensitive information. The incident highlighted the need for better data security measures in mobile devices.

The Sidekick also played a significant role in popularizing cloud computing and online storage. In 2004, Danger took its hip-hop device to a tradeshow and demonstrated how users could store their contacts and messages on a server and access them from any other device connected to the internet. The demonstration was impressive, but it didn't quite work out as planned. Someone managed to convince T-Mobile reps to give up information needed to access Paris Hilton's cloud data, leading to a security breach that exposed her personal photos and contact list.

The Sidekick may not have been the first smartphone, but it was certainly one of the most influential devices of its time. Its impact on the mobile industry cannot be overstated. Today, we take for granted the ability to store our data in the cloud and access it from any device connected to the internet. The Sidekick's innovative approach to user interface and data storage laid the foundation for many modern smartphones.

If you're interested in learning more about the history of the Sidekick, I recommend checking out an article by my friend Michael Fisher, who has done a deep dive into the phone's development and impact. You can find the link to the article below.

In conclusion, the Sidekick was a game-changing device that paved the way for modern smartphones. Its innovative design, user-friendly interface, and feature-rich functionality made it an instant hit among young people. While it may not have been perfect, the Sidekick's legacy lives on in many modern devices that continue to evolve and improve upon its original design.

---

Link to Michael Fisher's article: [Insert link]

Subscribe to our channel for more articles and videos about technology and innovation.

Like and share this video with your friends and family who might be interested in learning more about the Sidekick and its impact on the mobile industry.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou might not know it but that sound is from one of the most important albeit underrated phones in history in this decoder episode my explainer series here on the channel let me explain what I mean this is the sidekick 3 the third generation of the iconic device and probably the apex of the sidekick line and the only one I could find on eBay a decent condition that worked if I'm being honest now the original version launched back in 2002 under the brand name sidekick the top-selling phone in the world that year was this the Nokia 6110 is to say the sidekick kind of stood out now the sidekicks original brand name was the hip top and it was actually sold under that name outside of the United States in some regions and it was the brainchild of ex Apple engineers Andy Rubin Matt her shinsen and Joe Britt when they started the company Danger Inc named for the robot in Lawson spaces famous line of now the idea behind it though was that it was to be a computing device to help you use the internet anywhere not just at home a relatively ambitious concept back then now since your desktop was supposed to be used on your desk your laptop was supposed to be used on your lap and thanks to the style back then of hip mountain phone holsters it got the name hip top from assuming that you might carry it on your hip and within a few months after announcing the device even Steve Wozniak one of the original founders of Apple join the Board of Directors saying quote it reminds me of Apple's early days and the focus of building products easy enough for anyone to use I'm impressed with the way the danger has filled a void in the market and created mobile technology that is smart affordable and user friendly and not too long after its release the hip hop sidekick became one of the first phones to truly popularize and even democratize thanks to its lower than normal price point at the time the idea that a phone could be more than just something you make calls with firstly it had a full HTML web browser instead of the whap ones that were being used by most devices back then that were text only based on SMS and just trash really the sidekick browser was actually pretty clever and it had proxy servers between it and the internet that would render web pages and then convert it for the sidekicks browser so you were able to get the full site complete with the ability to use forms see images Oh crazy interact with the page etc just like you would on a computer also it used GPRS or general packet radio service which was new at the time and was 2.5 G for talking in terms of the genes by the way and this allowed it to always be connected to the internet no more pushing of buttons to sync on the user's part all of your data was just automatically synced all the time you could also send the emails with attachments and you even had a IM MSN and Yahoo messenger built in all of which worked way better thanks to that GPRS technology and aam was basically the de facto communication method for kids back then I used it a lot something else it even had that was revolutionary back then an app store yeah a good 10 years before Apple released their app store you could download apps directly over the network and it would even bill you automatically on your t-mobile phone bill if you deleted the app within a 24 hour period you just wouldn't be charged simple as a teenager using the sidekick 2 & 3 they both were for the first time that I can remember phones that felt like they made messaging in various forms on the go a viable and dare I say even enjoyable thing and even the albeit slow internet was still handy to have access to in my pocket I loved them and it seemed even at the time I wasn't the only one celebrities started using sidekicks some paid in campaigns which was clever in and of itself back then as a marketing strategy the new t-mobile Sidekick - but I am phone web and more everybody needs a sidekick but some we're not famously Jennifer Aniston went on TV and her phone rang in her purse she took out the sidekick and silenced it and put it away but thanks to that very distinct look in the swiveling screen it was pretty easy to know what phone it was the phone ended up permeating through the celebrity world and it became the phone that every young teenager wanted I kind of remember it felt like it was the first phone that was actually like cool the sidekick line even had a popular Dwyane Wade and Diane Von Furstenburg additions for the three and Juicy Couture and mr. cartoon for the two it kind of became the now very common blurring of Technology celebrity and fashion the sidekick also did something back then that was unheard of but is now very common and that store users data in the cloud at a tradeshow a presenter from danger took their hip-hop device and asked a member of the audience for a quote wrote it down in the phone and then put on the ground and dropped a bowling ball on it which completely destroyed he then took his sim card out put it into a new hip top sidekick and signed in with his account and then showed off how his contacts and messages and even that quote he just took all automatically came back right then and there sounds familiar no yeah iCloud does come to mind the next thing that the HEPA top in sidekick ended up kind of changing about the mobile industry and I imagine that they probably wish that they didn't was cloud data security long story short someone managed to convince t-mobile reps to give up information needed to access Paris Hilton's cloud data of her sidekick a celebrity at the time who famously used one and then they proceeded to leak all sorts of nude photos of her that were from the device along with phone numbers of numerous other celebrities other personal information etc Paris and the psychic both survived the ordeal but you better believe that OMS and carriers started to pay a lot more attention to user data security around about that time lastly the sidekick while it didn't last terribly long did manage to whet the appetite for people to want to do more on their phones than just call and text and do so in a more user friendly way and just better way then Windows Mobile and say blackberry were offering at that time the iPhone would come years later in 2007 after obviously being able to see the sidekick success at the hands of its ex employees and founder and even Android which Andy Rubin started while working at danger and which was then bought by Google would launch a year after that also on t-mobile naturally honestly I think I might even be safe to say that while the psychic was definitely not the first smart it was the first one that got people and even companies clearly interested in this idea of your phone being this always connected computer on you at all times if you guys want to know more about the sidekick and its history my buddy Michael Fisher who you might know as mr. mobile did an incredibly deep dive and it's definitely worth checking out I'll leave a link for that here and below in the description as well there you go let me know in the comments guys did you ever have a sidekick did you enjoy it I personally did very much so and I think it kind of was the first device that I truly like loved as a phone and ended up sending me down a path of like all the HTC phones and like all these other devices iPhones etc and so it just has a special place in my heart and wanted to do the video let me know if you guys think though of this video of everything in the comments below always love to hear from you guys and if you like this video please thumbs up it or share it's greatly appreciated also check out the rest of the channel feel like we see there please subscribe and ding the bell next towards subscribe so you can notify when I do new videos also there's an email newsletter linked below it goes out once a week it has all the videos I do here on YouTube plus tips and tricks and other fun things that are on the website that are necessary to make it here to video as always though regardless thanks for watching Ohyou might not know it but that sound is from one of the most important albeit underrated phones in history in this decoder episode my explainer series here on the channel let me explain what I mean this is the sidekick 3 the third generation of the iconic device and probably the apex of the sidekick line and the only one I could find on eBay a decent condition that worked if I'm being honest now the original version launched back in 2002 under the brand name sidekick the top-selling phone in the world that year was this the Nokia 6110 is to say the sidekick kind of stood out now the sidekicks original brand name was the hip top and it was actually sold under that name outside of the United States in some regions and it was the brainchild of ex Apple engineers Andy Rubin Matt her shinsen and Joe Britt when they started the company Danger Inc named for the robot in Lawson spaces famous line of now the idea behind it though was that it was to be a computing device to help you use the internet anywhere not just at home a relatively ambitious concept back then now since your desktop was supposed to be used on your desk your laptop was supposed to be used on your lap and thanks to the style back then of hip mountain phone holsters it got the name hip top from assuming that you might carry it on your hip and within a few months after announcing the device even Steve Wozniak one of the original founders of Apple join the Board of Directors saying quote it reminds me of Apple's early days and the focus of building products easy enough for anyone to use I'm impressed with the way the danger has filled a void in the market and created mobile technology that is smart affordable and user friendly and not too long after its release the hip hop sidekick became one of the first phones to truly popularize and even democratize thanks to its lower than normal price point at the time the idea that a phone could be more than just something you make calls with firstly it had a full HTML web browser instead of the whap ones that were being used by most devices back then that were text only based on SMS and just trash really the sidekick browser was actually pretty clever and it had proxy servers between it and the internet that would render web pages and then convert it for the sidekicks browser so you were able to get the full site complete with the ability to use forms see images Oh crazy interact with the page etc just like you would on a computer also it used GPRS or general packet radio service which was new at the time and was 2.5 G for talking in terms of the genes by the way and this allowed it to always be connected to the internet no more pushing of buttons to sync on the user's part all of your data was just automatically synced all the time you could also send the emails with attachments and you even had a IM MSN and Yahoo messenger built in all of which worked way better thanks to that GPRS technology and aam was basically the de facto communication method for kids back then I used it a lot something else it even had that was revolutionary back then an app store yeah a good 10 years before Apple released their app store you could download apps directly over the network and it would even bill you automatically on your t-mobile phone bill if you deleted the app within a 24 hour period you just wouldn't be charged simple as a teenager using the sidekick 2 & 3 they both were for the first time that I can remember phones that felt like they made messaging in various forms on the go a viable and dare I say even enjoyable thing and even the albeit slow internet was still handy to have access to in my pocket I loved them and it seemed even at the time I wasn't the only one celebrities started using sidekicks some paid in campaigns which was clever in and of itself back then as a marketing strategy the new t-mobile Sidekick - but I am phone web and more everybody needs a sidekick but some we're not famously Jennifer Aniston went on TV and her phone rang in her purse she took out the sidekick and silenced it and put it away but thanks to that very distinct look in the swiveling screen it was pretty easy to know what phone it was the phone ended up permeating through the celebrity world and it became the phone that every young teenager wanted I kind of remember it felt like it was the first phone that was actually like cool the sidekick line even had a popular Dwyane Wade and Diane Von Furstenburg additions for the three and Juicy Couture and mr. cartoon for the two it kind of became the now very common blurring of Technology celebrity and fashion the sidekick also did something back then that was unheard of but is now very common and that store users data in the cloud at a tradeshow a presenter from danger took their hip-hop device and asked a member of the audience for a quote wrote it down in the phone and then put on the ground and dropped a bowling ball on it which completely destroyed he then took his sim card out put it into a new hip top sidekick and signed in with his account and then showed off how his contacts and messages and even that quote he just took all automatically came back right then and there sounds familiar no yeah iCloud does come to mind the next thing that the HEPA top in sidekick ended up kind of changing about the mobile industry and I imagine that they probably wish that they didn't was cloud data security long story short someone managed to convince t-mobile reps to give up information needed to access Paris Hilton's cloud data of her sidekick a celebrity at the time who famously used one and then they proceeded to leak all sorts of nude photos of her that were from the device along with phone numbers of numerous other celebrities other personal information etc Paris and the psychic both survived the ordeal but you better believe that OMS and carriers started to pay a lot more attention to user data security around about that time lastly the sidekick while it didn't last terribly long did manage to whet the appetite for people to want to do more on their phones than just call and text and do so in a more user friendly way and just better way then Windows Mobile and say blackberry were offering at that time the iPhone would come years later in 2007 after obviously being able to see the sidekick success at the hands of its ex employees and founder and even Android which Andy Rubin started while working at danger and which was then bought by Google would launch a year after that also on t-mobile naturally honestly I think I might even be safe to say that while the psychic was definitely not the first smart it was the first one that got people and even companies clearly interested in this idea of your phone being this always connected computer on you at all times if you guys want to know more about the sidekick and its history my buddy Michael Fisher who you might know as mr. mobile did an incredibly deep dive and it's definitely worth checking out I'll leave a link for that here and below in the description as well there you go let me know in the comments guys did you ever have a sidekick did you enjoy it I personally did very much so and I think it kind of was the first device that I truly like loved as a phone and ended up sending me down a path of like all the HTC phones and like all these other devices iPhones etc and so it just has a special place in my heart and wanted to do the video let me know if you guys think though of this video of everything in the comments below always love to hear from you guys and if you like this video please thumbs up it or share it's greatly appreciated also check out the rest of the channel feel like we see there please subscribe and ding the bell next towards subscribe so you can notify when I do new videos also there's an email newsletter linked below it goes out once a week it has all the videos I do here on YouTube plus tips and tricks and other fun things that are on the website that are necessary to make it here to video as always though regardless thanks for watching Oh\n"