Danger Hiptop

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The Danger Hiptop is a GPRS mobile phone with wireless Internet capabilities and some functionality similar to a PDA. The Hiptop is sold by T-Mobile in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Austria under the name T-Mobile Sidekick. SunCom and Edge Wireless also sell the device in some parts of the U.S., and Fido is the exclusive Hiptop carrier in Canada. In Germany, the Hiptop service is offered by E-Plus including a flat rate tariff. A new update to the Hiptop, the Hiptop2, was released in September 2004. The Hiptop was designed by the company Danger which is located in Palo Alto, Ca and is manufactured by Sharp Electronics in Japan. Danger provides various services such as a catalog of downloadable software applications, email, and a web proxy.


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Appearance

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Hiptop

The Hiptop is a gray, slightly rounded rectangle just small enough to fit in the palm of an average-sized hand. On the front of the device is an LCD screen that rotates 180 degrees to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard underneath. On the left side of the front are two large rectangular buttons ("menu" and "jump"); between these is the microphone, which is used when the Hiptop is acting as a telephone. On the right is the ear piece for the telephone, a transparent scroll wheel with multicolored LEDs behind it that light up to signify certain events, such as an incoming phone call or the arrival of a new email message, and another rectangular button ("back").

There is another speaker on the back of the device on the left side, which is used for ringtones and all application and OS-related sounds. A panel on the left edge of the phone snaps off to reveal a SIM card slot. Along the top edge of the phone is an infrared port (unused) a power jack, and a mini USB port. The right edge of the phone contains a jack that can be used either by the hands-free headset or the camera attachment.

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Hiptop2

Image:Dangerhiptop.jpg

The Hiptop2 is a half-ounce heavier, .6" longer, but is slightly (.2") thinner than the Hiptop. The screen rotates simlarly to reveal a larger keyboard, but with the keys arranged in straight rows, as opposed to the original curved design. The Hiptop2's keyboard includes several more keys, as well. The large buttons on the left side of the device are still "menu" and "jump", but between them is a rectangular translucent "directional pad" ("D-Pad") that acts as the phone speaker. The pad has multi-colored LEDs behind it, as opposed to the scrollwheel in the Hiptop. On the right side are now two buttons ("cancel" and "done/back") with the scrollwheel in-between. The scrollwheel is positioned over a back-lit rocker switch which functions as "end call/page up" (up/red phone icon) and "send call/page down" (down/green phone icon).

A section of the rubber bumper on the top-left edge of the phone lifts up to reveal a SIM card slot. Also on the top edge are the "shoulder buttons", which change functionality depending on what application the device is in.

Along the bottom edge is volume-up, volume down on the left side and power on the right.

The right edge of the phone contains (from the top down) the hands-free headset jack, a Mini USB B port (used by device software developers), and a DC power jack.

On the back of the device is (from left to right) the camera flash (LED), the camera CCD behind a permanent mirrored polycarbonate lens cover (mirrored to help the user position pictures while facing the camera lens), and an ambient light sensor (used for determining light levels for the camera flash, whether to backlight the keyboard, etc). Toward the right side, centered vertically is the sound-effect, ringtone & speakerphone speaker. On the bottom-left corner is a lanyard cleat.

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Specifications

The LCD screen has a resolution of 240×160 pixels and displays either 16-shade grayscale or 16-bit color depending on which model one buys. The Hiptop I is available with a grayscale as well a color screen, the Hiptop II always has a color screen.

The Hiptop's firmware contains several bundled applications including a web browser, email client, AOL Instant Messenger client, address book, calendar, to do list, notepad, and several games. Also included is a photo gallery application that can be used to take pictures with the included digital camera attachment that uses a CMOS sensor instead of a CCD sensor. The resulting postage stamp-sized color JPEG images can be attached to emails sent from the device. The resulting photos are slightly grainy due to the noise that is typical of a CMOS sensor. There is also a USB port that is located behind a flexible cover next to the headphone jack. The USB is intended for use by developers that write software and not for general use. The OS and applications are Java based.

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Data Storage & Desktop Syncing

One of the most unique things about the Hiptop is the way it stores data. Despite having 16MB of built in flash memory, the Hiptop stores most of your data on Danger's remote servers. One benefit of this is that if you ever need to perform a hard reset or replace your device with a new one, you can retrieve all your data simply by entering your username and password. In addition, a security feature of the Hiptop allows you to set a password that must be entered when the device is turned on. If someone enters the wrong password four times in a row, the device erases itself completely. Later, if the correct password is entered, it will restore your data from the remote backup.

Data on the Hiptop can be also seen and modified via the Desktop Interface, a secure website that reproduces the functionality of most applications on the Hiptop. With some service providers, users can also purchase an IntelliSync client to sync calander, contacts and notes data to Microsoft Outlook.

In addition to storing user data remotely, the Hiptop can also receive over the air (OTA) firmware updates. The first happened on March 6, 2003 and was sent to all phones, while the second happened on June 26, 2003 and was sent only to Hiptops with color screens. On December 3, 2005, a third OTA updates was sent to Hiptop 2 users. Along with some streamling and minor OS upgrades, it allows for enhanced web browsing with Javascript support, unlimited remote storage for games and apps, and support for AIM buddy icons and text message emoticons. Users of the Hiptop 2 in Canada did not get the December 3, 2005 upgrade, and have been told that June 2006 is the target date.

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Included Software

The Hiptop ships with a suite of built-in software for web browsing, email and instant messaging and more.

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Hiptop3 / Sidekick III

Danger and T-Mobile have not publicly revealed any information related to the release of the next generation of the Hiptop series. In November of 2005 a picture of a T-Mobile product roadmap for the SK3 made it onto the web. Many believe that the roadmap is a forgery and does not represent any real plan for the development of the device. On February 15th, three new pictures of the Sidekick III surfaced on the web. The authenticity of these has also been disputed.

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Developing for the Hiptop

The Hiptop's operating system is based on Java ME, a scaled-down version of Java optimized for handheld devices. Danger has developed a proprietary API for the Hiptop, but they've made the API documentation publicly available free of charge via their developer website.

Third-party developers can write applications for the Hiptop and test them in a Hiptop emulator that will run on any Java-enabled computer. To run third-party applications on the Hiptop, a developer kit and USB cable must be used to transfer the software, along with a special developer key, supplied by Danger only to registered developers.

As of January, 2006 Danger has not enabled a customer-friendly interface to load third-party/developer applications directly to the hiptop. The development has grown so fast that developers found a way of introducing their applications to their audience. Of particular use became the USB interface of the Hiptop, which was originally intended for recovery. The Danger SDK comes with a program called HTConsole which allows users to open a small window of communication to their device. The user has to get a developer-key, load that on the device to unlock it for third party uploads and then can upload the so called Bundle-File of the developer. To date, the only way for end-users to install software for the Hiptop is to order it from the carrier using the software catalog built-in to the device.

Many intriguing third-party applications such as spreadsheets, instant messengers, IRC clients, and SSH terminals have already been written.

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Hidden Features

There are several hidden features accessible by pressing certain key combinations.

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Japanese-Language Support

With the recent (2005) OS 2.3 update, Japanese in UTF-8 encoding is supported in the browser, email, and IM clients.

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External links

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Danger_Hiptop"