Ok, well... it's official.... the sidekick is going back. It absolutely amazes me at how idiotic companies can be at times. The sidekick is a perfect parallel of what the RIAA is doing to music.... cripple things so much that it's not even functional because you see something that can make more money.... lock the shit down so that people are forced to buy $5 applications for everything and force thousands of potential customers away. Then, completely ignore the fact that not everyone uses windows and outlook...

There are a lot of issues with the SK3 for me.... Now, I will admit that the SK3 is a great phone for the non-geek and someone who is attached to microsoft's nipple. It has a lot of cool features to it -- and the $20 a month for both unlimited data and unlimited text messaging is awesome. The problem is that the people that rely on the additional services that a "smart phone" offers will gain absolutely nothing from the SK3. Basically, if you don't realize you can check email and surf the web on the phone, the SK3 is going to be amazing.... but if you understand the technology, the SK3 will do nothing more than piss you off.

And the biggest complaint of all - no IMAP support! Ok, yes, the "box" says that it support IMAP but all it can do is download messages from your inbox. It does not talk back to the server and mark messages as read, read folders on your IMAP server, or even store sent messages on the server... It is 100% pointless as an IMAP client.

Oh... and get this one... a new feature in the sidekick 3 that wasn't in the sidekick 2.... a USB cable! But wait.... all the USB cable does is allows you to use your SK3 as a card reader. Yup... no syncing or anything via the USB cable... just copy your mp3's over to your card so you can listen to them (and I mean listen - not use them as a ringtone because that would mean you wouldnt buy their 20 second version of the same song for $2)

Bluetooth? Yea... if you use a headset it works.... but forget doing anything else with it... it ONLY supports headsets -- absolutely nothing else. No file transfer (not even to the SD card), no modem use.... NOTHING. It's nice to see universal protocols adapted so that they will only work with one feature.... it's incredible.

Did I mention it doesnt work with Mac OSX and doesn't have IMAP support?

The most upsetting thing about all of this is that the sidekick has so much potential but the problem is that, like so many other corporations, the belief is that you have to cripple things and force people to buy them -- thus making the product absolutely worthless.

I set up my T-Mobile account because the SK data plan would have saved me $40 a month... any other phone with T-Mobile really (afaik) won't save me much, if any, money at all.... so I guess I'll be sticking with Cingular a while longer.... maybe I'll end up with an iPhone? Well, the issue with that is whether or not it will have an SSH client or anything else useful..... for now I'll be using my Nokia -- from yet ANOTHER company that refuses to interact with anything other than Microsoft's nipple but at least has enough sense to let there be some back doors and loophole's that those using Macs and Linux can actually function.