Editorials

So I’m giving the Sidekick 3 a spin. Yes, I said it, I’m trying the hiptop out. I had heard so much about the Danger platform, some of it from Steven’s blog, but never had a chance to really play with it, so I figured a 14-day trial would work just fine. And hey, maybe I’d even like it — after all, the device had finally reached a form factor that I could like. (The previous models being way too blocky.)

And what do you know: it’s a brilliant little communicator. Everything about it screams “we care about making complicated interactions easier.” Let’s run it down.

Multiple levels of user and system feedback

There’s lots of feedback, and it makes itself evident in multiple locations. Various levels of actions from receiving a message to responding to commands find their way into sound events, color statuses (via its translucent trackball), status icons and tooltip-style messages that don’t overlay your current working view. Not all at once, mind you, but there never seems to be an item that somehow gets hidden away. Maybe when I really start pumping items into it, but for now it’s perfect. (Sadly, a big shot like Walter thinks these are just “cutesy extras.”)

I had just started getting used to using voice notes on my RAZR but it was extremely odd to never have a status icon reminding me I’d left one in there for me.

High visibility of latest data

The device’s feedback lets you know to look at new information, but the system also provides quick shortcuts to seeing that information. The best example is in the “jump” menu of the device. Simply highlighting an option in this main-menu system shows a summary of the data contained within. And if there are only sub-menus underneath, it lists out those options.

Think about that — one of the biggest features that was added to PDAs in recent years was the “today” screen. No good organizer is sold without this feature now, whereas it used to be very common for devices like the Palm handhelds to ask you to enter the Calendar app first before seeing any calendar data (that data was then displayed like a traditional Filofax, showing all the empty time in-between meetings and appointments). Now you will always find some mode that gives you the quick rundown of what’s happening today. 11p meeting. 3p doctor’s. That’s it, no fluff. Want more? Then come on in.

So when I go to highlight the Notes app on the Sidekick, I see the first six or seven words of the actual notes in the main menu. If a note is a reminder, often times just seeing this much of it is enough to kick-start my recall. And this kind of at-a-glance access happens across the board.

Consistency (a.k.a. “Having standards”)

Across-the-board interface touches like the above points only happen when all the pieces are held to high standards that enforce consistency. Many of the hiptop-haters like to point at the fact that it is a closed platform and that Danger makes getting third-party software onto the device far more difficult than on other platforms. However, it is these same restrictions that guarantee that the user experience doesn’t change with new additions or new updates, and this is where Danger shines.

Evolved design

It’s also an amazingly comfortable thing to hold. It’s clear that the design of the device has been iterative, where the compromises between comfort and size have been carefully balanced. It’s rounded where it needs to be. It’s rubberized where it needs to be. Obviously this device could have been made smaller, but it would not have been as easy to hold or type on it. Talk to the Motorola Q users — people want thin and the Q gives it to them, but the thinness makes it somewhat uncomfortable to use to any length of time.

Sure I’d love it if the Sidekick was smaller, but it wouldn’t be as good. This comfort is one of the reasons PC World ranked the Sidekick 3 as the #2 best smartphone overall, ranked over the Treo 700w and the HTC Wizard… despite the limitations or smaller feature set of the platform.

A new approach for the web age

What you won’t immediately notice is one of the Danger platform’s most differentiating features — that it’s web based. When you first activate the device, you create an username and password on your cell provider’s server. That account establishes a push-email address where you get emails instantly, but it also links the main hiptop features such as notes, to-dos, and the calendar into a web-based “desktop” application. Make a new note on the device? It’ll show up on the web site. Add an event on the web page in Firefox? You’ll see it on the phone’s agenda. People (or some small businesses) who use websites like Backpack or Gootodo may love this approach. In this way, it’s a bit like the Web2.0 of phones, where all these actions on the clients create these little push and pulls that make your information accessible from anywhere via the internet.

However, there are haters

Now if only T-Mobile would change the marketing on this thing. There’s plenty of people who will avoid Danger’s device like the plague because it’s been so heavily promoted to the youth market. Some people who won’t use it just because Paris Hilton is so associated with it. Some people look at the big menus and colorful elements as childish… since adults don’t want systems that provide rapid acquisition or explorable interfaces that let them adapt to changing information faster? To those people, you’re really missing out. There’s no place that the interface talks down to you like a child — only the provider’s advertising does that.

But it’s not all wine and roses. You corporate types won’t like it since it doesn’t do Exchange, and all that push/pull stuff puts all organizer data on your cell provider’s servers, not yours. The Bluetooth implementation is limited to a headset profile only (at least, on T-Mobile’s firmware). The Sidekick’s font is well-designed for readability but it suffers from a small size and the low resolution of the screen itself. There are also seemingly arbitrary restrictions on data storage (such as the fixed cap of 2000 contacts or 6 MB of email). It’s annoying they used an illustration of a hipster couple for the phone feature when they could have used, oh let’s say, a telephone.

And yes… you’re going to have to flip it open to dial numbers (so if you make lots of voice calls that aren’t on speed dial, it won’t be right for you).

But overlooking these items, it’s a damn, damn good device.

10 days left to decide.

Edited 2006-07-31: Just a few things I wanted to add in hindsight: PC World seems to have consistently ranked the Sidekick high on their ratings, so their review of the “3” is not indicitive of any extreme improvements upon the “II”. In addition, 5thirtyone reports much disappointment with the improvements in the Sidekick 3, making it clear that my gushing review is mostly about first impressions of the device as a whole.

I agree with (yet another) Noah, Circuit City sucks. The business of retail electronics has changed. And yet, it’s stayed the same as well.

Check out the story behind the Apple retail stores…as people called them crazy for breaking traditional retail models (by putting their equipment out in the open where it can easily handled, for one), Apple went on to make around $1,400 more per square feet than Best Buy did last year. Of course, Apple is selling not just hardware but a full experience of their brand. General retailers suffer by this comparison.

It’s a bizarre point in consumer culture to be in, since the advertising that convinces people they want something they don’t need is what’s driving them into the stores. And yet nowadays people do hours of comparison and research online before entering the store. So do you fight these forces to sell them something that might be cheaper? Do you let them buy something they’re likely to be unhappy with? I don’t envy the electronic stores after the internet boom the same way I don’t envy bookstores or record stores.

But in the same way that some media businesses understand they sell an experience now and not just goods (comfy couches in the bookstores, anyone?) electronics retailers must follow suit or face becoming the supplies shop for people too impatient to order direct off the internet.

Some pull it off: there’s a brilliant salesman at a T-Mobile store near me that I’ve dealt with before. I was just back there recently and overheard him working with a customer who was curious about their MDA phone. He deftly got them talking about why they wanted the MDA without getting them to question their choice in order to make sure that it was what they really needed. In the process, he pointed out different features of the Blackberry phones and the SDA to illustrate why the MDA was going to work better for them. The result is exactly what Noah3 described as the long-term goal: better satisfaction with the purchase, better customer retention and overall spending. Hell, that experience was why I was back there.

This isn’t new. This is what is traditionally called “good salesmanship.” Covering the options, being knowledgeable, giving the customer confidence — this is classic. And traditionally rare at very large retail businesses.

It’s a bit funny, but I’ve just realized that I made a resolution to simplify my life this year. Since I don’t do the new year’s resolution thing, you can image that it surprised me a bit.

And Pac-Mac is eating it. Well, not specifically Pac-Man, but the gaming industry in general.

Last weekend I went to see Revenge of the Sith. During the opening ads, at least 50% of the ads shown were for video games. Two of them were even presented movie-trailer style, like the spot for Forza Motorsports, the most polished of the bunch.

Now, I followed E3 on TV this year—thanks to Cablevision who seems to be the only carrier of G4 in the New York City area—and the main thing I took away from the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 demos was that Hollywood is in a lot of trouble. And I was reminded of this as I watched this Xbox Live experience on the big screen.

Yes, this isn’t a new statement. No, this isn’t something we haven’t already seen unfold in retail and the box office. But it’s a new shift in the trends framing that activity. Just take a look at the effects shown in the next-generation console demos and decide how long the big Hollywood blockbuster can last, especially when you consider some key points:

It surprises me when companies decide to design misleading communications with their customers. I thought of this when I was looking through my “snail” mail and realized that I had discarded my Verizon bill last month.

This is a classic issue of volume versus time when it comes to mass-marketing mailings, and in an attempt to limit my attention to only the relevant items in my mailbox, I had clearly mislabeled the Verizon bill. I may have trashed it or simply filed in into my pile of offer mail (which I so rarely file through).

One of the psychology principles Don Norman touches upon in The Design of Everyday Things is that people remember things only enough to make basic distinctions between objects. In the example used in the book, he shows that most people cannot remember all the features of an American penny without reference, but that they of course know a penny when they see one. It’s that we remember enough about coins to distingush them apart from other coins more than we remember to identify them specifically by their features and details—which is why the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was such a disaster, because while the features were distinct from the quarter, its size and color were almost identical.

Is blogging about work ever smart? This is a question I’ve been wondering about a lot now. It started (for me, anyway,) with the Friendster firing but evolved into something bigger after few recent incidents—the “Queen of Sky”/Delta blog and the “EA Spouse” posting—and smaller ones, like a data-loss complaint against a piece of beta software…

It seems like blog culture has hit a wall — the average blogger wants to live in public but doesn’t want to have their public commentary affect what they write about. The thing is, blogs and their influence cannot be denied: think Dan Rather, just for starters. It’s clear that the way news evolves today is either initiated or amplified by activity on blogs, personal or not. Even if they are not quoted directly, they are being used as a rough meter of interest on certain topics. And many personal blogs have evolved into fairly professional endeavors themselves: Boing Boing started as a personal scrapbook, but is now a highly-trafficked “directory of things” that looks and acts more like a publication now, from advertising/sponsorships to presidential candidate endorsements. This was not a conscious plan of the author — it happened because their opinions and editing hit a chord with readers and the readers kept on coming. People who don’t seek an huge audience sometimes get one anyway.