For years, T-Mobile’s popular line of ‘Sidekick’ phones ignited the carrier’s brand and made it the cool, hip thing in town. Now, the clunky old Qwerty phones look like something out of the Stone Age and T-Mobile is ready to stop support for the backbone of the outdated platform.
A service called Danger powered the phones’ data connectivity and features, but it runs on a separate set of servers than other T-Mobile data. As such, it’s a cost burden to the mobile provider to continue to support it and the company has issued a notice that all Danger services will be terminated on May 31.
The last Sidekick was made years ago, so anyone who has one is likely in the market for an upgrade (unless they happened to lose their newly purchased phone and bought a Sidekick on eBay or something). T-Mobile said it will work with customers to make the transition into a new phone smooth and easy.
Because Sidekicks are cloud-based (it was revolutionary at the time), all user contact data, photos, and calendar data will remain stored online and accessible for users.
While the mobile provider won’t say what it plans to do for those who will be affected, it stresses that it really has no choice. It has to move on and free up resources to make way for the next big thing. Hopefully it will at least offer an upgrade discount of something to customers who still use their trusty Sidekick.
