Andy Rubin’s Essential Smartphone Company to Shut Down
by Anton Shilov on February 13, 2020 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Android
- Essential
Essential, a company founded by Andy Rubin with an aim to create easy-to-use devices tailored for the most important needs, this week announced its cease of operations.
Andy Rubin, the man who headed creation of Google’s Android operating system, founded Essential back in 2015. It took the company two years to develop and build its first Essential PH-1 smartphone that came in a titanium body with a ceramic back, featured a minimalistic iPhone 5-like design, had a large edge-to-edge display with a raindrop camera for selfies, and ran ‘pure’ Android without any fancy UI. The handset looked rather innovative in 2017, but all of its main features (except expensive materials) appeared months later on cheaper or more popular devices, so the product lost a substantial part of its appeal. As a consequence, sales of the PH-1 were negligible.
After the company launched its first handset, it promised to release more hardware and software products, including a smart home assistant, a variety of accessories for the PH-1, and even its own operating system. Eventually, only a 360-degree camera, and a 3.5-mm audio jack adapter emerged on the market.
Back in October, the company introduced its Project Gem mobile experience, which involved a small smartphone with basic functionality, which was supposed to turn the company around, or at least attract new investors. Apparently, Essential does not have ‘a path’ to finish development of Gem, which is why (at least officially) it has to close its doors. (This means they had 'no avenue to deliver the product to consumers'.)
The statement from the company reads as follows:
“Despite our best efforts, we’ve now taken Gem as far as we can and regrettably have no clear path to deliver it to customers. Given this, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations and shutdown Essential.”
Essential will cease offering updated Android OS to its PH-1 customers starting immediately and its February 3 security update is the last one for the PH-1 to be released by the company. Also, Essential will shut down Newton Mail service on April 30, 2020. Fans of the device who know how to build software, will be able to get prebuilt of the PH-1 vendor image and everything else needed to keep hacking the smartphone on Essential’s github.
Related Reading
- AnandTech Year In Review 2019: Flagship Mobile
- Samsung Announces The Galaxy Z Flip: Foldable Phone With Glass
- Samsung Announces The Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra: 120Hz, 5G, Huge Batteries, Crazy Cameras and $$$
- First with Snapdragon 865: ZTE Unveils Axon 10s Pro w/ 5G, 6.47-Inch AMOLED, 12 GB LPDDR5
- Motorola’s $1500 Foldable Razr to Ship Early February: Pre-Orders Soon
- Microsoft Ends Support for Windows 10 Mobile
Sources: Essential
51 Comments
View All Comments
Spunjji - Monday, February 17, 2020 - link
That's a solid blueprint. Uses the word "alleged" where appropriate, notes the outline of the issues and the fact that Google found against him, and doesn't put too much emphasis on it vs. the manifest flaws of the product he was trying to sell.Check the comments though... a certain contingent of incredibly-online males can't even stomach bare statement of the facts.
Reflex - Thursday, February 20, 2020 - link
It's always interesting to me how fragile these supposed alpha-males are. And yeah, Joel got it right. It is a pertinent detail that should always be mentioned, but hardly the only thing going on.peevee - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
I like my PH-1 a lot, too bad they did not have enough marketing resources to make it more known and reach profitable sales numbers.Sometimes, there is a minimum viable investment necessary.
fred666 - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
Their mistakes:1. No headphone jack (didn't bring any people to buy it, but pushed some away)
2. Released way too late outside of the USA. And even there, was late compared to the Galaxy S8
3. No water resistance
4. Poor repairability
5. No real reason to get this over the competition
6. Broken promise about 3 years of security updates.
Reflex - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
7) Didn't replace the CEO the moment it came out that he had been pushed out of Google for sexual misconduct.bug77 - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
I've said from day one: offering prompt updates to the only segment of Android phones that were already getting them is not a viable business model. As downvoted as I was for that, I was right.mattkiss - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
"...with a raindrop camera for selfies"What is a raindrop camera?
Sharma_Ji - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
Cause they were the first one to bring notches and named whatever they wanted.wrkingclass_hero - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
I'm shocked, SHOCKED... well not that shocked.prime2515103 - Thursday, February 13, 2020 - link
I guess his smartphone company wasn't so essential after all.