Danger T-Mobile Sidekick

by Anil Dash

Dear Danger HipTop T-Mobile Sidekick brand mobile internet access device: You suck.

I know, I know, I’m your target demographic. A super geek who’s looking for a replacement for a cell phone that I hate because of its shitty UI. And everyone I know’s been hyping these things for what seems like years, to the point where I stopped reading about it because I knew I’d get sick of your toy before it was even released.

I even went and looked at your HipTop.com site today, and was pleased to see that the functions you list for the device are “Talk, Blog, Snap, Share”. You know what I’m looking for.

Now then, why do you suck? I’ll tell ya. Because Leonard told me this morning that my site doesn’t show up on your piece of shit toy. My site couldn’t be cleaner. Granted, it doesn’t validate at the moment because of some silly technical stuff, but I deliberately omitted anything but a Screen stylesheet so that non-screen displays would see just the content, with the text starting right at the top!

But you apparently took it upon yourselves to write software to specifically fuck up my website’s display on your device. Do you hate me specifically, or just the internet in general?

So I decided I was going to modify my page to conform to your browser’s idiocy. I went looking for technical docs on what you do to mangle web pages. None. I went looking for a desktop emulator that I could run to simulate your device on my computer. None. I went looking to see an acknowledgement of the shortcomings of your device, indicating that the situation would be improved. None.

Nice job creating a device. Too bad you didn’t bother to make it a platform. Same mistake Blackberry made with the RIM. You apparently, correctly, focused on user experience, but ignored the fact that a key part of a user’s experience is the pleasure or frustration they experience when they do things you didn’t expect them to do with your toy.

And you failed. And you’ve ruined all the good street marketing that you could’ve easily gained by winning my favor. I’m a trend-setter, goddammit! I’m an Early Adopter. I’m a Young Literati Hispanic Mix! You need me.

But you can’t have me. ‘Cause you suck.

  • Danger T-Mobile Sidekick
  • by Anil Dash
  • Published on November 1st, 2002

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