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May 2, 2006 08:58 PM
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Sky Dayton stopped by the Gizmodo offices today to chat about the launch of Helio, the new MVNO featuring, you know, fancy stuff—unlimited streaming video, MySpace access, the allure of Korean design. We sat down with him for a few minutes to ask our most pressing questions about this new contender to Amp'd, Virgin, and all the other cell phone companies. (Just kidding; the questions weren't very pressing at all.)
Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account, here's a mish-mash of quotes, facts, and most salient bits you might be interested in. (We might put up an MP3 later of our interview if there's any demand.)
After the jump, a bulleted list!
Quotes are from Mr. Dayton; All else is us.
• HOT (Helio on Top) is a feed reader application that even uses stock-standard RSS on the backend, but you can't add your own feeds. Silly!
• Why 'begging?' "We took that term from Korea ... It's just different."
• Have you aimed at Myspace from the beginning? "Yes."
• Why isn't your logo a sun? (This question stumped Mr. Dayton.) "How can you argue with that?" (He offered me a million dollars for stymying him, but I declined.)
• Why no PC connectivity? "If you want to connect a device to a laptop, get a [PCMCIA] card. You don't need a battery. It just goes in and it's with you all the time." No plans to ever offer use of devices as PC modem.
• Who's providing the backhaul? "These devices [Hero and Kickflip] work on Sprint ... We have deals with Sprint and Verizon."
• How about smartphones and/or QWERTY devices? "We have a really cool roadmap ... We've got many new devices in the works and many new services on those devices."
• You guys seem worn out. Have you been doing this all day? "I got up at four in the morning. I've got make up on from CNBC."
• Allowing open phones to be activated on the network: Could be done but not with the data, basically. Don't expect it.
• Helio hired the UI designers who did the Sidekick.
• Expect the Earthlink Wireless business to be rolled up into the Helio brand in the future.
• "I'm pretty sure Gizmodo was the first RSS feed I ever subscribed to." Too bad you can't get it on your Helio HOT!
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