Yesterday was a sad day for me, albeit one that was a long time coming. Yesterday, Helio, a wireless MVNO co-operated by EarthLink and South Korea’s SK Telecom, let out its final death cry. 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. The lights were dimmed, the blinds were closed, and accounts were terminated. Just like that, Helio was dead.
As a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. 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. 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. 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.
To celebrate this nostalgia and recognize the rather cool company that once was, I present: the Helio Ocean 3. This is the phone that was to be Helio’s savior; this is their unfinished magnum opus. 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.
The History:
First, a bit of history. (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. It was — by all standards at the time — a pretty fantastic phone. It was a phone that you wanted to show off. A phone your friends asked about. A phone you felt cool using. Ask any gadget blogger about the Ocean; chances are, they’ll wistfully stare off into the sunset, a single tear rolling down their cheek.
A month later, the iPhone was released. If any one thing put a bullet through Helio’s head, it was this. Everything the Ocean had to offer, the iPhone did it better. 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. Almost over night, the iPhone became a fashion statement. 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.
By 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. 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. Virgin Mobile acquired Helio and, after some delay, released the Ocean 2.
Flash back a few months, before the Virgin Mobile acquisition. Helio had learned its lesson: if they were going to fight this fight, they had to throw down the gloves and do it right. 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. Funds were scrounged, executive changes were made, and their last ditch effort began.
The Ocean 3:
- Many, many months before the world saw its first Android handset launch in September of 2008, the Android team met with Helio. Helio’s US team fell in love with the product, even in its infancy. The Android team loved Helio’s ideals. Helio’s Ocean 3 would have been one of the first — if not the very first — handsets to run Android. Unfortunately..
- SKTelecom, the aforementioned company that was half of the co-venture that was Helio, nixed the idea of using Android. As so many mobile companies have done in the past, they decided that they could do this whole OS thing better themselves. 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.
- Helio decided to move away from the hardware partner they’d utilized for the Ocean 1 and 2, Pantech, due to high hardware failure rates. The job of building the Helio Ocean 3 was given to Samsung.
- The Ocean 1 was a slider phone, but it was unique. Rather than being a portrait slider or a landscape slider, it was both; slide it one way, and a number pad was revealed. Slide it another, and a QWERTY keyboard sprang out. Due to patent issues — and the fact that no one was using the bulky number pad — the Ocean 3 would have been a QWERTY-only slider.
- One prototype was built, which is what you’re seeing in these pictures. The prototype was carried around in a closely guarded, plush-lined suitcase.
- There was, as you can see, supposed to be a charging/syncing dock. In fact, there was supposed to be one for the Ocean 2, but it got scrapped as the money ran out.
- During the Ocean 1 & 2 years, Matias Duarte and his UX team (many of whom moved to Palm with Matias to build webOS) built a brand new interface internally referred to as Halo. A number of ideas which later found their way to webOS — primarily the contacts and notifications systems — found their roots here. The interface was entirely Flash based, making it incompatible with the Ocean 1 and 2’s WIPI platform; with the Ocean 3’s theoretical new platform, it could have finally been put to use.
Alas, this was an unwinnable fight. While a spectacular handset in theory, it was a distant dream. It quickly became clear that taking this handset from the prototype stage to anything resembling a worthwhile contender in the now exploding mobile space would have cost millions — and those were millions that no one involved was willing to spend. SK Telecom began looking for a buyer, and found one in Virgin Mobile. The project was canned along with most of the remaining employees, followed two years later by the entire operation.
G’night, Helio – you were good to me.
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I loved my Helio Ocean and the Helio 3 with Android could’ve saved the company……but probably not. Helio’s pitch was that they were selling futuristic phones from Korea with awesome gaming capabilities. By the time the iPhone app store came out it was all over for them. Even the iPhone’s touch screen had a better typing experience for me. Those numbers were always a pain to type on the Ocean’s keyboard.
What a bunch of idiots. Helio was an idiotic ego trip of Sky Dayton’s that flushed over $500m. I recall meeting with him/them in 2005 and they were a complete joke. Cannot believe there was any breath left in them.
This is really a good article to read, brang back so much memories. I had a Helio Ocean and I remember when I would bash the iPhone. Since playing with one, i fell in love and lost interest In the helio ocean. But before I switched to a iPhone, I joined heliocity and always joined the discussion of others in the forums and getting tips on downloading really underground apps that people published. Now, RIP Helio, you made me be patient in a 2 year contract and finished it.
Look very nice Helio. It should have been out. Very awesome
“A month later, the iPhone was released. If any one thing put a bullet through Helio’s head, it was this.”
I hope RIM will release a tablet that will do the same thing to iPad (my only chance to recover my investments in RIM).
http://www.thecynicalinvestor.net/2010/05/rim-bilberry-tablet.html
Dang Greg, I see you took down the Heliocity page too
I’m not going to lie, reading this really brought a tear to my eye. And to think, if Helio would have jumped on board with Android, where would they be today? I still have a Hero I look at everyday to remind myself of the splendor Helio once was. We should do another PF Changs Helio reunion!! Looks like JustinB wants your prototype!
Thanks Greg. I had a Helio Ocean. Just recently gave it to my mom so she could flash it over and use it on MetroPCS. Helio will be missed.
So…. how did ya get it?
Interesting post. Helio, through Virgin, was my first foray into “smart” phones, through the Fin flip. I loved this phone, but it was already obsolete by the time I got it, and I let it go in favor of the Eris, and now the Incredible.
I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for that phone though. Sad to see a company with some good ideas and interesting hardware got chewed up by the big boys.
I wanted a Helio Ocean so bad and just when my contract was up and I was ready to go Helio…Virgin bought up the company and there was a lot of speculation about the continued viability of the service. So I never went that route. Its too bad that great devices like the Ocean got buried by a lackluster carrier.
sounds really cool
The coolest phone I’ve owned is the Spectronic Sidetouch. Had a huge screen, did HTML, took decent coloured pictures, did MMS etc. you can read on the list here:
http://www.spectronic.se/english_new/ts2200_2.asp
Don’t forget that it came out SIX years before the first iPhone.
I’m sorry to hear that the Helio Ocean 3 had to be scrapped, especially after Samsung and Helio were able to produce a prototype.
The prototype looks slick and I wonder how it would have contended on the mobile phone market.
However, I guess we’ll never know…
i was a member on your site! i had we had fun hacking our helio phone’s im sad to see it go..
i will post a link to this post on my site http://www.BlackiPres.com thanx for the update
I have every single Helio phone except for this one. Oh how I wish my collection was complete!
My Helio Ocean is still one of the coolest phones I’ve ever owned.
The Pantech Duo was pretty far from a Helio Ocean (the former lacked the spring-loaded dual slide mechanism and ran WinMo). See this MIT Technology Review article to learn a bit more about how the Helio Ocean was made: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/18647/
Pantech Duo? Pfft.
I might not be a gadget blogger, but I too am wistfully staring into the sunset (single tear and all) thinking about my old Ocean.
well, i actually had a helio phone. it was awesome i loved it very much. i enjoyed being able to tell people i had helio. Then explaining what that meant in terms of phone service. Too bad my phone died on me when it was crushed. had to cancel the service.
I feel your pain. I had a Pantech Duo – same body as the Ocean – that I got right after it came out. Things like a full HTML browsing experience really wowed me.
+1
I feel your pain. I had a Pantech Duo – same body as the Ocean – that I got right after it came out. Things like a full HTML browsing experience really wowed me.
Then iPhone happened, my Duo suddenly felt clunky and depressing, and the love was lost.
If Helio had managed to make the first Android device (rather than the somewhat dreadful G1), that could have really changed things. Never know.