![]() ![]() I mean, all you need is a Linux kernel and some dudes who know about computers, right? They began work on their own project: SKLinux. As so many mobile companies have done in the past, they decided that they could do this whole OS thing better themselves. SKTelecom, the aforementioned company that was half of the co-venture that was Helio, nixed the idea of using Android.Helio’s Ocean 3 would have been one of the first - if not the very first - handsets to run Android. Helio’s US team fell in love with the product, even in its infancy. Many, many months before the world saw its first Android handset launch in September of 2008, the Android team met with Helio.Funds were scrounged, executive changes were made, and their last ditch effort began. As the Ocean 2 was reaching the end of its development cycle (many months before its release), work on the Ocean 3 - a massive stray from anything the company had done before - began. Helio had learned its lesson: if they were going to fight this fight, they had to throw down the gloves and do it right. Virgin Mobile acquired Helio and, after some delay, released the Ocean 2.įlash back a few months, before the Virgin Mobile acquisition. It was too late to turn back Helio was bleeding cash, and just needed to make any sort of movement to convince people they were still alive. ![]() Where as Helio had managed to convince around 200,000 people of their “coolness” in 2 years, the iPhone convinced 1 million people in 3 months.īy the time the iPhone was announced and available, Helio was already knee-deep in building the Ocean’s successor, the aptly named Ocean 2… and it paled in comparison to the new contender. Almost over night, the iPhone became a fashion statement. Helio recognized this, and tried hard to combat it (going as far as launching a direct “Ocean vs iPhone” campaign, heavily tailored to show the Ocean’s strengths) - but it was no use. Everything the Ocean had to offer, the iPhone did it better. If any one thing put a bullet through Helio’s head, it was this. Ask any gadget blogger about the Ocean chances are, they’ll wistfully stare off into the sunset, a single tear rolling down their cheek.Ī month later, the iPhone was released. It was a phone that you wanted to show off. It was - by all standards at the time - a pretty fantastic phone. (If you just want the details of the device itself, hop down to the bullet points below) In May of 2007, the original Ocean was released. Prior to today, it was a myth no one outside of the company had seen it, and the number of people within the company who had seen it could be counted on two hands. This is the phone that was to be Helio’s savior this is their unfinished magnum opus. To celebrate this nostalgia and recognize the rather cool company that once was, I present: the Helio Ocean 3. That community got me into blogging, which took me to all sorts of industry events, where I in turn met all the people who eventually lead me to my job here at TechCrunch. It was a pretty tightly knit group of 10 thousand-or-so of the geekiest geeks you’ll ever meet, hacking at - and nerding out over - every Helio phone we could get our hands on. On a whim one weekend, long before I became a writer here, I founded a community called Heliocity - which, as you could probably guess by now, was focused on Helio. Just like that, Helio was dead.Īs a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. The lights were dimmed, the blinds were closed, and accounts were terminated. As I predicted in March, Virgin Mobile, who had acquired the failing company just two years prior, was pulling the plug on the post-paid side of their service that Helio had become. Yesterday, Helio, a wireless MVNO co-operated by EarthLink and South Korea’s SK Telecom, let out its final death cry. Yesterday was a sad day for me, albeit one that was a long time coming. ![]()
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