CTIA 08: Helio announces “Helio Era”
Posted by Greg Kumparak on April 1st, 2008 at 10:18 PMUpdate: Hope you enjoyed April Fools, everybody! This was not an actual announcement from Helio.
Having aggressively targeted the 16-35 market for the past 2 years, Helio announced today during CTIA that they will be addressing an otherwise ignored market: the 70-85 year olds.
A bit of a shocker, overall - we’re hoping to have a hands on sometime while we’re here.
What we know:
- Larger buttons to assist those with reduced sight
- Bingo odds calculator
- Automatically detects when the user is yelling into the microphone, self-reducing the volume
- Most non-phone features removed, Calendar replaced with “Grandkid Birthday Reminder”
- Exclusive ringtones by Fred Astaire, Fats Waller, and Bing Crosby
We’ll update you when we know more.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:33 pm
April Fools!!!!
April 1st, 2008 at 11:43 pm
This is NO JOKE! My Grandparents already ordered this package. The best part is there’s no physical or doctor’s visit required!
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 am
hahahaha damn amexus you beat me to it! lol
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:33 am
very funny, guys
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:22 am
just so you guys know you usually make these kind of posts at the BEGINNING of the first but oh well.
and who WOULDNT like bing crosby ringtones?
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
Haha. Self reducing volume. Good april fools joke guys.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
wouldnt it be funny….if it wasnt a joke and it was all true…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….hahahahahaha
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 am
NO IT WOULDNT
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:13 am
Making fun of old people must garner the youngsters some really great karma! What’s next, the disabled?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
With all the stuff being annouced at CTIA this week, why would anyone go for a Helio? Sure, they’re good phones with many cool features, but the longer I own my Ocean the more I’m wishing I’d bought something else. Above all the unique operating system means I can’t download many of the free apps that are available for most other phones, which basically means I’m stuck with a phone that does less than everyone else’s. So I’m not surprised they’re tageting the old folks, they have no idea what’s good in a phone these days. When my two year contract is up I won’t be getting another Helio, and in fact I doubt Helio will still be around by then if they don’t get their act together. No one wants a crippled phone while everyone else is doing so much more on theirs.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
They need to focus on the business user market and make true smartphones. That is where the money is to be made
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Dave…what free apps that are available for other phones can you not get? Name some applications and their function in the forum, and you never know…the great readers of Heliocity might have them up and running for you in a few days. I haven’t met anyone who had a phone that could do anything my Ocean couldn’t….sometimes you might have to be creative though.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
[...] was a bit busy at CTIA when April rolled through this year, so I kept our April Fools joke fairly simple. Playing on the idea of giant remote controls, I announced that Helio had decided to [...]