Virgin Mobile USA let loose a gigantic press release earlier today announcing the results of Q3 2008. No new information revolving around Helio was included, only highlights from the past few months for both companies. If you are as bored as the kid in the picture and like financial garble, set aside a stormy afternoon and take a read. Overall, the outlook from VMUSA is optimistic as Helio is transitioning into it’s new home, the major downside is we have to play the waiting game before things start picking back up, which hopefully won’t be too much longer.

While it’s unknown when the update rolled out, sometime recently Garmin unleashed a small revision, adding the highly anticipated 3D view to Garmin Mobile on Helio. 3D view is a great tool for the easily confused and directionally-challenged (like myself). It still gives you an aerial view of the map, but it’s slightly skewed so it’s a little more realistic than the 2D ones. If you are currently subscribing to the service and it hasn’t prompted you to update yet, try deleting and redownloading the application. If you currently don’t have a GPS and find yourself getting lost on dark scary streets a lot, Garmin Mobile definitely gets the job done at $2.99 per day for quickies, or $9.99 per month for the extremely lost souls.

Feelin’ lazy? Dial GARMIN (427646) from your Ocean, Fin or Mysto and hit OK to jump directly to the download page. Already got it? Go into Settings > Route View > 3D to switch over.

Update: After reading some of the comments of it not working, it appears only the Mysto (and I’m assuming the Fin) version of Garmin Mobile have this. The way the Helio store is setup separates the Ocean from other devices because of Ocean’s screen flip function. Hopefully we will see the update mosey on over to the Ocean shortly.

The eternal question everyone asks themselves constantly through the day, what is the Ocean 2 going to be like? While we still don’t know much about this device, we’d like to start seeing what our community wants to know.

Over in our forums we would like our users to post the top 3 to 5 things they’d love to know about the Ocean 2. Don’t be lethargic and say “I WANTZ 2 KNO EVRYTHNG!!1!”. Think about it! New web browser functionality? IM capability? Hardware specs? You name it.

Why are we doing this? There are secret Helio/Virgin Mobile spies lurking around every corner… Well, not quite, but we do know that they read our forums every now and then, and we’d love to see if we can eventually get them to spill some details on this mystery device.

That’s right, the day has finally come, it was like a gigantic present this morning when the FCC’s confidentiality expired on the Ocean 2. Pictures and more pictures (and a half naked guy in a reflection, or a hand– you decide), oh joy! We’ve gone through the images at the FCC and cropped/rotated/resized them for convenience, and without further delay, here they are. These are very large photos, so after you click the thumbnails you may need to wait a bit for it to load.

If you’re bored with the pictures, check out the user manual for the Ocean 2. Nothing like reading the manual for something you can’t have yet, eh? Skimming through it gives away a few details (but in no way guarantees a final feature list as it’s an extremely old document– only the basics):

Today Virgin Mobile USA announced their two new board of directors as result from the merge between our beloved Helio and VMUSA. Richard Chin, who is president of SK Telecom Americas, and Sungwon Suh, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Strategy and Investment for SK Telecom (who was also on the board for Helio).

Both have plenty of experience in the industry and will hopefully have some great input on the future of Helio through Virgin Mobile. Read the whole press release HERE.

While the specific release date of the Ocean 2 hasn’t been announced, last night we received an e-mail from Virgin Mobile USA’s PR rep Jayne Wallace telling us the general time frame– the Ocean 2 will be released sometime in the 1st quarter of 2009.

This can be taken as great news and not-so-great news depending on how you look at it. It’s not-so-great for all the current Helions who have been waiting endlessly for the Ocean 2 through all the madness and mayhem that has happened in the past year. It can be taken as great news because there is finally an official source stating when the Ocean 2 is going to drop. Virgin Mobile obviously realized that the Ocean 2 was quickly outdated by the many new phones coming out and wants to work on that aspect of the OZ2.

“The Ocean 2 is not going to be 2008,” Wallace said. “It has been manufactured, and there is a commitment to putting it on the market, but it’s going to be in early 09 … just because the shell has been manufactured doesn’t mean it should be released right now. We want to put it out when it’s the best it can be.” (from PCMag)

In addition to their new slogan, “Helio By Virgin Mobile: Plan To Have It All.”, Virgin Mobile USA also announced a few other interesting things today. The launch of a new Helio integrated handset called the Shuttle, which should be out on September 28th at Best Buy. It wasn’t extremely clear if it was being launched under VM or the ‘Helio by VM’ brand Looks like it will definitely be a VM phone with Helio features. From the newest press release dropped by VM, it says:

“Following Virgin Mobile USA’s recent acquisition of Helio, the Shuttle will be the first handset enabled to integrate several features from the Helio portfolio. This will include improved access to social networking communities and other mobile internet sites through partnerships with Accuweather, ESPN, Facebook*, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo! and more.
The Shuttle is also slated to feature Virgin Mobile’s first location-based services from uLocate including:
— Buddy Beacon, the popular ‘friend-finder’ solution which allows
customers to find friends in a crowded city and show where they are
and what they’re doing; and
— Where, the application that delivers local information to easily
discover nearby places and things of interest such as locating the
lowest gas prices, finding local events, and getting restaurant
recommendations.”

The $80 A-La-Carte plan has also been given a nice update, from 1500 minutes to unlimited. This option will be available for current and future Helions.

A small announcement, but it’s good to hear at least something is happening. Keep things rollin’, VM.

Earlier today, Virgin Mobile USA announced via press release that the acquisition of Helio has been completed.

What does the future hold for current and future Helio subscribers? They are saying everything we currently have + more. Hopefully this stands true, and hopefully this means the release of the long awaited Ocean 2 is just around the corner! Don’t disappoint us, VM.