Java Development on the T-Mobile Sidekick II

The T-Mobile Sidekick II phone is getting alot of celebrity endorsement and publicity. Sometimes, not such great publicity, as in the case of the recent theft of Paris Hilton's phonebook from her T-Mobile Sidekick II.

What I havn't seen talked about much even in the techie communities is the fact that the sidekick is a pretty good Java platform. Unfortunately, currrently the phone only supports a proprietary Java API and is not compatible with the J2ME standards.  Danger, the company that makes the Sidekick, has announced an upgraded OS that is J2ME compatible is coming sooon and will be an over-the-air upgrade for current sidekick users.

Danger does have a pretty good developer community site. (Currently this is down for maintenance, with a promise to return new and improved on 3/28).

With the Danger supplied Java APIs, you can access quite a few of the phone's nifty features. You can access the telephony, the photo albums, all of the various input buttons, email, web browser, address book, camera, Calendar, To-do list, and Notes. There are a fair number of community created Java applications available for the Sidekick.

There is one gotcha. In order to develop your own applications for the Sidekick, or even to be able to upload 3rd-party applications to your sidekick, you need to obtain a Danger Developer Key which will unlock your phone. To obtain this you must fill out and fax in a form requesting this access. Danger does seem pretty good about granting this access to developers, as I had no problem in obtaining a developer key. The primary reason for this restriction is that they have a download catalog on the phone from which you can purchase and install 3rd-party applications onto your phone. They want this to be the only channel for Java applications. They don't want the general public to be able to install just any Java applications. I'm assuming this is part of their business model. Without a developer key, you can not upload any of your own content onto the phone, including custom or 3rd-party ring-tones. This is where they take alot of flak from the general community.

I've had my Sidekick II since January now, and I give it a definite thumbs up. So, if your looking for a good Java-enabled phone, take a look at the Sidekick II.