The Essential Phone brand is still alive. The question if there will still be a second-generation Essential Phone remains unanswered until today when Andy Rubin shared something on Twitter. New products will be announced soon although not much information has been provided. Rubin said to just “hang tight” because they will “make an announcement soon”. So yes, the company remains in the mobile business. There is hope after all. It’s only a matter of waiting for the next smartphone to be revealed.
The Essential Phone PH-1 had lots of potentials but unfortunately, it failed on many levels. Before the market launch, the release was delayed a few times. The company also received a trademark infringement lawsuit from Spigen and old partner because of trade secrets theft. There’s also that incident of customers’ information accidentally sent out to others.
The phone didn’t sell but it’s not because of the device’s challenging repairability. It did receive a number of updates though including the Essential Camera app with spatial sound in 360 and faster capture speed, fix for lags and night mode, KRACK patch, better touch response, reduced compression and portrait mode (Camera app), and Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities among others.
The Essential Phone failed to sell but the second model could be a winner with a no-notch screen. Over a year ago, we noted the Essential Phone 2 could be cancelled. It could be a tragedy but the winds have changed directions. It could also be an AI-powered phone.
Despite laying off a third of the workforce and that news the Essential Phone will be no more, Essential is not dead. Many things can still be done. The Essential Phone 2 could come with an under-display selfie camera.
When asked if the Essential will still have a second act, Rubin responded:
Hah. What do you think we're doing over here? We're a consumer products company. We engineer cool stuff. Eventually, cool stuff gets launched. You'll see ?
— Andy Rubin (@Arubin) April 5, 2019
So will there be an Essential Phone PH-2? Rubin isn’t clear. There may be a new product but we’re not sure if it’s a next-gen Android phone. One thing is sure, Essential is working on “cool stuff” as per an old tweet by the company exec and Father of Android.
