back to article Android daddy Andy Rubin's Essential axes handset, is 'actively shopping itself' – report

Andy Rubin's quixotic smartphone startup, Essential Products, has cancelled a handset and is looking for buyers, according to a Bloomberg report – just a month after opening its doors in the UK. "The company hasn't yet made a final decision on a sale," Mark Gurman writes, but has "canceled development of a new smartphone". …

  1. Dave 126 Silver badge

    >At least you can't take one thing away from Essential. It was the first phone to introduce The Notch.

    Yeah. However wasn't the first phone to regain screen space by bumping status bar icons up level with the camera and earpiece though. That was done by 2016's LG V20 by means of a small secondary display.

  2. Dave 126 Silver badge

    I just don't like the Essential Phone's peripheral 'port'

    The Essential Phone only supplies power to an add-on module, data is sent over some flavour of RF. It just seems to be a limited system, unlike the GreyBus standard (an electronic standard that lets Android see resources in modules as if they were integral to the host phone) that underpins Motorola's Mod System (the actual physical connector is proprietary to Moto).

    Having a physical connector on the rear of a phone can lead to more elegant packages than plugging something in at the base of the phone. This could be seen on the Nokia 6210, where the bottom-mounted dock contacts extended around to the rear of the phone under the battery, so new features (such as Bluetooth) could be added with a new battery module.

  3. Dave 126 Silver badge

    Poor camera

    Reviews of the Essential phone suggested its main failing was a camera that just wasn't as good as rival phones.

    A few years ago Sony made the QX100, a lens and sensor-only camera designed to use an Android phone as screen and storage. Image quality was superb because it was effectively a Sony RX100. However, it was let down by connection and transfer issues. This concept could work well using Motorola's Mod system.

    What other mods would I buy, and to what extent can their functionality be incorporated into the base phone? A keyboard - maybe. A game controller - maybe, but Android game support is poor because games are too easily side-loaded. Good stereo microphones for recording jams and gigs - could be incorporated into handset, or otherwise use USB C since separating microphone from phone is useful. A speaker - no, my current phone is loud enough for me to hear podcasts in the shower. Active IR 3D environment mapping - yes please, but I'm weird like that. A projector - nah. IR camera - nah, I don't retrofit insulation to old houses for a living, but it would be fun to pretend to be the Predator for five minutes. Get To Da Choppa! So, there's no 'killer app' for modules for me.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Modular phones could be a niche market at most

    Most people are perfectly OK with a single device where pieces don't detach or are missing in the wrong situation. They could look appealing to some nerds, but even a lot of them need anyway something to show off, so they will turn to the fashionable models.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Modular phones could be a niche market at most

      Consumers don't want modular phones. They make a noise to suggest they do, but are too stupid to see it through.

      Removal of the headphone jack and addition of a superior modular inline, upgradeable DAC is a key example of this.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: Modular phones could be a niche market at most

        The two are not mutually exclusive.

        There is absolutely no problem with having a USB Type-C "superior modular, inline, upgradeable DAC" without removing the internal headphone jack. Just like on computers. Audiophiles and regular people are both bound to be content that way.

        But no, Apple did it so we should too.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Call me a cynic, but I suspect this was the plan all along ...

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge

    If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

    ... I doubt they'd have had the same business model (subsidise it forever and run everyone else into the ground) and Android would have been one choice out of several. It was pretty terrible until relatively recently and the only way it's survived is due to its price tag.

    Perhaps if Google hadn't bought Android, Essential would have had more of a chance.

    1. Christian Berger

      I don't know...

      I mean most mobile phone ecosystems have the same problem. Paid applications seem to only make that worse. Just look at things like "Pay to Win" in games or paid applications still siphoning your data.

      What would have had a chance if there was some minimalistic operating system for mobile devices. Something that just adds a "phone layer" on top of a "normal laptop". In a way a modern form of the Nokia Communicator. We would now have the technology.

      The problem with the Essential Phone was, that it was just what reviewers wanted. It didn't have an easy to replace battery. It had some gimmicky "modular" thing, which only offered things that were normal in mobile phones. Reviewers love that. However if you actually have to spend money for it, practical use is somewhat more important.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

      It was pretty terrible until relatively recently and the only way it's survived is due to its price tag.

      I don't know about that, Windows Phone had the same $0 price tag once MS realized they couldn't compete against free and STILL couldn't compete against Android despite being less terrible than Android at that time in many ways. Microsoft's failing was it was a bit too resource heavy at first and it wasn't as flexible as to hardware variety (i.e. display resolutions etc.) so it couldn't fit across a whole top to bottom product line like Android could be made to.

      I think even if Google had charged a bit for Android it wouldn't have made any difference in its success, which was more based on how much it could initially be tweaked by carriers and OEMs to help differentiate their product lines. Google has been slowly reducing OEM latitude to differentiate with each successive Android release, but it is too late for OEMs to switch now - they're hooked and the Play Store is too big for a new entrant to compete against unless they wanted to subsidize app developers to the tune of billions to incent them to port to a new platform.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

      Android has been pretty terrible until recently??? What you on? It's been the best OS around introducing features years before apple copy them, having a proper sandbox and permissions model from its 1.0 release.

      I have had Android devices since the cupcake (android 1.5) era, a HTC Hero and it's always felt Android was better OS than alternatives available at the time. That was true then, it's still true on my Android Oreo 8.1 Pixel 2 now...

      1. Christian Berger

        Re: If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

        "It's been the best OS around introducing features years before apple copy them,"

        Maybe it's been the best _mobile_ OS around, however it's a far cry from most operating systems. I wonder why mobile OS vendors all had to do the same obvious mistakes.

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

        having a proper sandbox and permissions model from its 1.0 release.

        Nope. If it were proper you could have denied each permission individually, and you've not been able to do that until only recently. And the app may crash or refuse to work.

        Android was better OS than alternatives available at the time

        Then you didn't try Symbian or WebOS.

      3. stephanh

        Re: If it were anyone other than Google who bought Android, Inc...

        "Android has been pretty terrible until recently???"

        I'd say it was pretty terrible until version 4. Speaking as ex- Froyo user.

  7. Jason Hindle

    Remind me... What is Essential’s USP

    And when was the last time a proprietary peripheral port succeeded in a mass market product?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Remind me... What is Essential’s USP

      Errr, Apple's Lightning port in 2012?

      Essential failed for a lot of reasons, even if their attachments were based on some sort of standard it wouldn't have made one whit of a difference. The market for modular phones is extremely tiny, and even then you need a 'killer app' attachment that will draw people to that phone, which Essential's gimmicky 360* camera was not.

  8. 89724102371719511892724I9405670349743096734346773478647852349863592355648544996313855148583659264921

    They cost more than performance PCs yet have zero upgradability!

    You should be able to upgrade everything: CPU, RAM, motherboard, case, screen, battery, cameras, wireless, ethernet, hdmi etc... It preposterous that these horrible little phone-like devices do so little for the crazy prices paid and are so swiftly made obsolete by lack of insecurity updates, far before their demise.

  9. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    "The price paid is likely to be just a tiny fraction of the mooted $900m-$1bn valuation just one year ago," he predicts.

    Valuations, eh? A pity it is my pension fund these twats are playing with.

  10. Sil

    Who would want to purchase a smartphone designer which sold about 3 devices and has zero market recognition? Taking an equity stake in HMD should be much more profitable.

  11. Mike 16

    Taking Sides

    Should I be concerned that our Android ecosystem son is about to marry an iPhone entranced woman?

    They at least managed to compromise on Alexa as their nosy-servant choice.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I the only person...

    ...that doesn't really care...I'm suffering mobile fatigue...I haven't seen an interesting project in years.

    Let's get rid of all these quirky startups, stick with OnePlus and call it job done...OnePlus seems to be on the right path...pretty good phones, pretty good price, reasonably open, fair warranty and support terms...solid.

    Before more hardware innovation is done, we need to get the software straight...I don't think it's possible to say that there is a single all round excellent operating system for phones. They all suck to some degree...for me, that's pretty frustrating...with most of the flagship phones (to me at least), with Android / IOS et al it feels like I'm driving a Ferrari with concrete wheels.

    It'd be nice if the mobile platforms opened up a bit more as well...a bit of freedom wouldn't go amiss. I know custom OS images are a bit niche, but nobody is asking the mobile phone manufacturers to fund the development, nor does anyone expect them to support custom OS images...

    I'm sure I'm not alone here...I'd love something similiar to Arch for mobile, something that can have a minimal default install footprint that can be used to build upon and customise...again...yes...niche...but most of the best tech is niche...look at the Thinkpad, most people would look at those and think it was the naffest looking bit of retro tech ever...however, engineers like us look at them and we see a badass tank.

    I'd kick off a project myself, but I can't for the life of me make swapping out bootloaders feel like a reliable process. I've done it dozens of times on dozens of phones but I always...ALWAYS...get that heart stopping moment when you reboot the phone and hope that it won't brick...that first 20 seconds always feels like a life time.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So... the Essential Phone is essentially dead.

    Might want to keep a few handsets in good condition... in time to come they might be novelty items not unlike the Nokia N-Gage.

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