The Helio Ocean was a dual slider

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

-enabled

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

wireless

mobile device A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

sold by mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wireless carrier Helio, and manufactured by

Pantech Curitel Pantech Inc. () is a South Korean company that manufactures mobile phones. Established in 1991, its market is mainly domestic with partners in the United States, Japan, China, Europe and Vietnam. In 2012 Pantech was the second best-selling handse ...

. A distinctive design feature of the Ocean was its dual sliding mechanism — when slid down in the vertical position, it revealed a

telephone keypad A telephone keypad is a keypad installed on a push-button telephone or similar telecommunication device for dialing a telephone number. It was standardized when the dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) system was developed in the Bell System ...

. When slid down in the horizontal position, it revealed a 35-key

QWERTY QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mus ...

. Since their acquisition by

Sprint Nextel Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being Merger of Sprint Corporation and T-Mobile US, acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 5 ...

, Virgin Mobile USA terminated the wireless voice and data services of those customers who had an Helio Ocean or other Helio branded devices on May 25, 2010. Customers had until this date to transfer their wireless phone number to another wireless carrier without loss of service. A deactivated Helio Ocean can still be used as a digital camera, allowing images and video files to be downloaded via the included USB interface cable directly to a computer.

Release

The device became first known to the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

on November 24, 2006 from an

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...

filing. Photos released on December 9, 2006 showed the Ocean in test apparatus documentation, and later on February 21, 2007 a full gallery depicting the Helio Ocean was available through the FCC website. When publicly released on Friday, May 11, 2007, the Ocean was billed as "the ultimate

messaging A message is a unit of communication that conveys information from a sender to a receiver. It can be transmitted through various forms, such as spoken or written words, signals, or electronic data, and can range from simple instructions to co ...

and talking machine" and "the definitive mobile

social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

ing experience." The Ocean is seen as a breakthrough device for Helio, appealing to a more mainstream audience and not just the "ultra-cool hipsters" the company had previously targeted. Dr. Wonhee Sull, President & CEO of Helio, said that work on the Ocean device started "before Helio was officially a

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

Features

The Ocean was a prime example of a converged device. In addition, to

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...

functions, the Ocean's functions included those of a

camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone that is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with a color c ...

and a

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

. The Ocean device had several advanced features, such as

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

, a 2

megapixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

camera A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...

with

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

, an

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos, as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film. Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...

, 3G speed

EV-DO Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO, EVDO, etc.) is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. EV-DO is an evolution of the CDMA2000 ( IS-2000) standard which ...

network support, built-in

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

, MMS support, and a removable

battery Battery or batterie most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source * Battery indicator, a device whic ...

. The Helio Ocean had a considerable number of features at the time of its release. Standard programs included a

Web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

, a

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-si ...

, an

alarm clock An alarm clock or alarm is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of people at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they can sometimes be used for o ...

and a

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

. For communication, the device included

caller ID Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is ...

(with support for photo caller ID), a speaker phone, a

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

memo

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a newsp ...

, a record call feature,

address book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries, called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone numb ...

(with multiple online syncing abilities), T9 Text, and Korean character set support.

GPS

The device was location aware with its internal

. The Ocean was loaded with a version of

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

, which displayed turn-by-turn directions; however, the application warned users that it should not be used while driving. Additionally, th
Buddy Beacon
application allowed friends with Buddy Beacon-enabled phones (as of Dec 2008, only Helio phones) to broadcast their current location to each other, visible via MapQuest.

Multimedia

The integrated music and video player supported multiple

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s (including

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...

, and WMA) and allowed for over-the-air (OTA)

downloads In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...

. The music player ran on a separate

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

, with improved efficiency that allowed for an estimated 15 hours of music listening on a battery charge. On November 29, 2007 Helio released a file viewer

program Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

for Ocean users, allowing the device to read a variety of popular

s, among them

DOC DOC, Doc, doc or DoC may refer to: People and characters * Doc, an abbreviation of doctor * Doc (nickname) * Doc (mascot), the Towson University mascot Persons * The D.O.C., American rapper (born 1968) * Doc Gallows (born 1983), ring nam ...

, XLS, PPT,

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

, TXT, as well as several image types in both landscape and portrait modes.

Ultimate Inbox

The Helio Ocean also included several choices of

E-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

communication with support for Helio Mail,

Yahoo! Mail ! Mail (also written as Yahoo Mail) is an email service offered by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yah ...

Windows Live Hotmail Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It also provides a webmail interface accessible via web browser or mobile apps featuring mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and ...

AOL Mail AOL Mail is a free web-based email service provided by AOL, a division of Yahoo! Inc. Features AOL Mail has the following features available: * Email attachment limit: 25 MB * Max mailbox size: Unlimited New accounts seem to be limited to 1 ...

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

EarthLink EarthLink is an American Internet service provider. Earthlink went public on NASDAQ in January 1997. Much of the company's growth was via acquisition. In 2000, ''The New York Times'' described it as the "second largest Internet service provider ...

, and two additional user-defined

POP Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

IMAP In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by . IMAP was designed with the goal of per ...

accounts. Helio began adding support for

push e-mail Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which when new email arrives at the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server), it is immediately, actively transferred ( pushed) by the MDA to the mail user agent ...

to the Helio Ocean in July 2007 with Push support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, and AOL Mail. On April 23, 2008 push support was added for Gmail, along with automatic notifications for POP/IMAP accounts. For a nominal fee per month, connectivity to Microsoft Exchange was available on the Ocean since July 25, 2007. There is also

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

support for

AOL Instant Messenger AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, sometimes stylized as aim) was an instant messaging and presence information computer program created by AOL. It used the proprietary OSCAR protocol, OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow us ...

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an instant messaging client and associated protocol created and formerly operated by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo I ...

, and

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as MSN), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a Cross-platform software, cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the now-di ...

Locations Mini

On August 2, 2007, those in the Helio community had figured out how to build custom applications (the device is Java-based), including Opera Mini.Opera Mini for everybody! Custom apps! Yay!
- heliocity.net Several months later, on March 19, 2008, the Ocean got ''official'' software support for the

Opera Mini Opera Mini is a mobile web browser made by Opera. It was primarily designed for the Java ME platform, as a low-end sibling for Opera Mobile, but only the Android and Mocor OS builds was still under active development. It had previously been d ...

browser when Helio became the first

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

carrier to sign a deal with Opera. It was speculated that Helio had followed the "incredible community response to Opera Mini."

MySpace Mobile

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

Mobile was available for the Helio Ocean, leading some to refer to the Ocean as a "MySpace phone". Helio was the first cellular provider to take the MySpace experience mobile. On July 19, 2007 Helio announced the launch of an improved version of Myspace Mobile that operated nearly five times faster than Helio's original self-developed application.

YouTube

On December 12, 2007 Helio announced a more enriched

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

experience, at the time the "most complete" on a mobile device.Helio brightens its YouTube offering
- crave.cnet.com The Ocean was able to perform

video capture Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data ...

and

upload Uploading refers to ''transmitting'' data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients, and terminals ( SCP/ SFTP). Uploading can be used in th ...

to YouTube, as well as

tagging of videos. Users could log into YouTube to personalize, rate videos and use other community features.

Popular culture

In early episodes of the reality television show ''

Keeping Up with the Kardashians ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' (often abbreviated ''KUWTK'') is an American reality television series which focused on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian family, Kardashian–Jenner Stepfamily, blended family. It aired ...

'',

Kris Jenner Kristen Mary Jenner ( Houghton , formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She rose to fame starring in the reality television series ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' (2007� ...

is seen using the device.