The American smartphone company Essential, founded in 2015 by its then-CEO Andy Rubin, has announced that it is shutting down, just months after announcing Project Gem. Project Gem was a new initiative that aimed to develop some off-the-shelf devices for a high-end smartphone market. Essential said that despite its efforts, it would not be able to complete the Gem and therefore it would not be available to the consumer. This is why the company made the unpleasant and difficult decision to “close”.
Essential has only released one Android , the Essential PH-1, in 2017. Rubin is known in the tech industry for his contributions to the early development of the Android OS. The PH-1 was the first Android device to bring the first “proper notch” into our lives as we know it, and was followed by iPhone X, although LG was the first company to experiment with the notch with the LG V10.
Essential did everything it could to make its phone stand out in the market, which is proven by the fact that the PH-1 received the Android 10 update on the same day as Google.
The company also released a 360 Mod camera and a high-quality audio adapter for smartphones. Essential’s “closure” also takes away Newton Mail, a leading email service for Android and iOS users, among others. Specifically, Essential said that Newton Mail will be available to users until April 30, 2020.
This raises many questions for users as to what will happen to their Essential PH-1. The company stated that the security update for the Essential PH-1 released on February 3, 2020 was the last. However, users can continue to use their smartphone as usual, with the difference that there will be no customer support or software updates to download. In addition, the company will upload the Android image for the PH-1, along with other related data, to its GitHub repo to provide easy access to developers. Also, thanks to the Android community, users will be able to take advantage of various ROMs that will be compatible with the Essential PH-1. In this way, the smartphone will continue to gain new features in the future.
