Danger
More info
- Creator
- Andy Rubin, Matt Hershenson, Joe Britt
- Released
- 2000–2008
- Type
- Phones and services
- Owner
- Microsoft (from 2008)
The company behind the Hiptop/Sidekick — a cloud-synced smartphone before the term existed, and the training ground for Android's founder.
Andy Rubin, Matt Hershenson and Joe Britt founded Danger in Palo Alto in 2000. The Hiptop arrived in 2002 and was sold by T-Mobile as the Sidekick: a swivel screen, a full keyboard, and all your data kept on Danger's servers, so a lost phone could be replaced without losing anything. It became a cult object among teenagers and celebrities, roughly while BlackBerry owned the suits.
Rubin left in 2003 to start Android. Microsoft bought Danger in 2008, and the following year the servers failed — Sidekick users lost contacts and photos, which was precisely what the design had promised could never happen. From the wreckage came the Kin in 2010, built by Sharp and cancelled after roughly six weeks.