I love the Helio Ocean, and I love Opera Mini. When some shadow devs used their fancy footwork to make the two work together, I was a very happy boy. Helio was impressed too, and today announced that the alternative browser would be officially supported on the Helio flagship handset.
This is notable for a few reasons. This is a user-driven initiative; the vibrant Ocean community more or less said “we’re going to use Opera Mini on the Ocean, like it or not”. Helio then said, “Well, OK. We’ll help.” This is not the response most carriers would give, and it rather shows how into its users Helio is. It trusts their judgment.
The free upgrade is also the first time any carrier has ever said, “Here, use Opera Mini.” It’s always been a third-party download.
We’ve also heard that this could be the first of many deals between Helio and Opera. While the new browser doesn’t replace the built-in browser at this time, it might in the future. Those of you with the un-official version might want to upgrade to the official one, as it was made custom or the Ocean and runs a little smoother, or so we hear.
Kudos the Helio and Opera for innovating for the users where most carriers and developers would be stingy.