Thursday, April 05, 2007

Helio Ocean Seeks to Usurp the spot that Apple's iPhone Hasn't Even Filled Yet


Did I not say that by the end of they year, we would see a whole new category of mobile devices?

Why yes, yes I did!

This year, we will see many more such devices roll out and jostle for position.

Here's what the NYT has to say about Helio's Ocean:

By JOHN BIGGS
Published: April 5, 2007
While smart-phone makers cower in the looming shadow of the June release of the iPhone from
Apple, a small cellphone service provider called Helio is introducing a device that is getting plenty of buzz.

Helio’s phone, the Ocean, has two keypads. Sliding the phone up reveals a standard phone keypad, while sliding to the side reveals a full QWERTY keyboard. The 4-inch-long phone has a 2.4-inch display and 200 megabytes of internal memory for video and audio recordings and media files.
Helio gives the phone its own special interface and offers downloadable content including games, TV shows, movies and music.
The Ocean also handles e-mail, instant messaging and Global Positioning System services. What makes the Ocean stand out is the integration of almost all of these services into its contacts software. Each contact listing has small icons that show your friend’s current status in AIM,
Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger.
The Ocean, priced at $295, will be available at dealers this month, giving it a bit of a head start on the iPhone.


And so it begins.

To reiterate a point that I have made earlier, "smart phone" is a dumb name. It's not a name for an emergent category of wireless devices, it's placeholder. A band-aid of a name. Somebody, somewhere, has to come up with a name for these things that sticks!

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Jack (King) Kirby of DC comics envisioned and named these devices back in the 70's when he created The New Gods. These devices may not yet be as advanced as Kirby dreamed they might be but they are well on their way - and so are we - to realizing the symbiotic relationship between humanity and technology that is represented in his idea of the Motherbox.