Hacker News Reader

The Danger Hiptop was an incredible device. At a time when RIM basically thought the web was a useless feature on a mobile device, Danger built an amazing mobile browser (discussed in the article) that wouldn't be matched until the iPhone. Instead of a handful of limited text-based WAP sites, the Hiptop rendered full desktop sites and did a pretty darn good job of making them usable on a mobile device.

I still miss that General Magic bunny though.

View on HN

RIM didn't think that the web was a useless feature. The crappy browser on old BlackBerry devices was due to carrier limitations (literally not allowing blackberry to put a full browser on - refusing the buy devices from any major OEMs with proper browsers on them). Apple forced AT&T to let them include a full browser on it.

Pre iPhone and Android carriers really did run the show because they owned the access to the customer.

T-Mobile was trying to differentiate with the Danger stuff, which is why they allowed it to run a better browser. AT&T/Cingular and Verizon were big enough that they wouldn't have allowed it.

> wouldn't be matched until the iPhone

Many pre-iPhone Nokias (and other devices) would disagree with you there

Reply on news.ycombinator.com