More on the Sidekick Petition
The Sidekick Sync petition I posted about last week has been making some news! RCR Wireless News had a piece about it on Friday and Mike Dano, the author of the piece, actually contacted T-Mobile and Danger for comment. Unfortunately, though, T-Mobile’s comment was not very encouraging:
"We are aware of the petition and continue to evaluate new Sidekick offerings, but at this time, do not have plans to launch PIM synch."
Although some on hiptop.com have seen this quote as confirmation that sync will never come to the Sidekick and are vowing to jump ship either immediately, as soon as their contract runs out, or when the new Motorola MPX comes out, I don’t see this as any more definitive than the “information” that we’ve received from T-Mobile about sync to date. Actually it’s less definitive. Up until now we haven’t gotten anything official from T-Mobile itself regarding sync, just unofficial reports and rumors from T-Mobile reps who have been continually saying that sync is just around the corner so to speak. T-Mobile, to the best of my knowledge, has never spoken officially to this and so this comment doesn’t close the door on sync, nor does it promise it. Danger, of course, has been talking about sync, but they could be talking all day about how they have this great sync product and if T-Mobile doesn’t offer it, it doesn’t really do most Sidekick users any good – here I’m assuming that the majority of those who own Sidekicks are T-Mobile subscribers, which I think is a pretty safe bet.
As far as the petition is concerned, we’ve gotten a decent number of signatures so far, but then I don’t know what to expect for this type of petition. I can only ask those of you who feel strongly about this to ask your friends who you know have Sidekicks or are considering buying one to sign. Here are some statistics to keep you entertained:
The two top states represented are California at 15.8% and New York at 12.9%
13.7% of those who signed estimated they would drop the Sidekick in the next 3 months if sync was not offered, and another 28.4% estimated 3-6 months.
Over 60% of those who signed have belonged to T-Mobile for more than a year and over 30% have been subscribers for over two years.
Here are a few of the comments that people have given:
“I will cancel my service with T-mobile and buy the Motorola MPX when it comes out if this feature is not added.”
“Been wanting the Sidekick until I realized this feature didn't work. I need to synch!”
“Tmobile has shown nil motivation in keeping the Sidekick current and innovative. Where's some real 3rd party apps, Tmobile?Why are you holding the Sidekick hostage?"
“I have contacted Danger and T-Mobile twice a month since March 2004. Danger blames T-Mobile and T-mobile blames Danger. Even if we get synch in a month, I may never use T-mobile again.”
“Mark/Space has already developed a product that works for Mac users, and Intellisync currently works for Windows users on C&W, please let Mark/Space use the product they developed. Afterall, changing your thoughts on this once M/S was ready to ship their product wasn't very nice."