The only thing that the new T-Mobile Sidekick (Danger Hiptop) is missing that would be nice is bluetooth, although with USB, IR, and most promisingly, an “Accessory Port”, hopefully a bluetooth add-on will be coming soon. Hmm… with USB available, it may be not too hard to write drivers for a USB ethernet adapter. That a simple nat or proxy, plus a crossover cable might give you a simple bootstrap for ad-hoc internet access when your laptop is wi-fi-less. Just thinking out loud… (time to d/l the latest version of J2ME)
I’ve already raved about the form-factor and the pricing, but one more thing that really separates the Danger (and hopefully all next-generation devices) is the ability to do true multitasking. Stewart Alsop writes in Fortune that he believes that the Danger’s business model is risky (their taking a percentage off data access only), but I have a feeling that might pay off – bigtime. Once people discover how useful (and addicting) live internet access (specifically IM, but also finding directions and getting movie schedules, etc) are, it’ll be a paradigm shift like the cell-phone or even widespread net access itself: we’ll never imagine how we lived without it. Think about what that shift was like.
Related: EdgeReviw: Handheld & Wireless, Enabling the Wireless Enterprise: Hot Java Devices, Sony Ericsson P800, Headset hassles and Bluetooth aches, widepipe.org on Ericsson Bluetooth headset, Danger and Apple Buyout (that looks like it fell through (if it ever was true) as current iPhone talk is centered around their Sony/Ericsson alliance – hey, iphone.org redirects to Apple.com…), M-Commerce Times article from January: They are exploring and are capable of delivering a CDMA 1X and even integrate wireless LAN version of the hiptop should the market demand it