Android Creator Puts Essential Up for Sale, Cancels Next Phone

[Luca Rallis]

Quote

Essential Products Inc., a startup co-founded by Android creator Andy Rubin that launched last year to great fanfare, is considering selling itself and has canceled development of a new smartphone, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

The company had been working on a

new model [of the Essential Phone], but has since canceled development of the device. It has shifted engineers and other resources to an upcoming smart-home product, which is on track for release by next year, the people said.

 

The cancellation disappoints me very much. Although I never owned the original Essential Phone, it looks absolutely amazing and it was relatively affordable (if you waited some time after the release) and I was planning on making the second model my daily driver once it was released, provided it was anything like the original.

 

And really, another smart device? Is it really neccessary? I feel at this point the only company actually making anything original in the smart device space is Amazon. Everyone else copies exactly what they do, including Essential. The Essential Home looks eerily similar to the spot, doesn't it?

 

Quote

Essential could decide to go back into the phone business and has explored hiring a manufacturer other than Foxconn to develop a device with the Essential brand. This would take Essential out of the difficult development process, but still give them a presence in the smartphone market.

 

If Essential isn't developing it, is it really an Essential phone?

 

Quote

Rubin responded with a post on Twitter. “We always have multiple products in development at the same time and we embrace canceling some in favor of the ones we think will be bigger hits,” he tweeted. “We are putting all of our efforts towards our future, game-changing products, which include mobile and home products.”

 

It's not game changing if its what Amazon is already doing. I'm not against smart home devices at all. I just wish that we could see something new and revolutionary coming from someone other then Amazon.

 

What do you guys think? Let me know down below!

 

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-05-24/andy-rubin-s-phone-maker-essential-is-said-to-consider-sale?__twitter_impression=true

[Crunchy Dragon]

Need a source link.

[Luca Rallis]

Just now, Crunchy Dragon said:

Need a source link.

Just added one. Sorry about that.

[Enderman]

I love my essential phone

[Droidbot]

Man, this sucks. The Essential is a sick device, and I was planning to pick one up (low price and all, and I cracked my Redmi's screen). FeelsBadMan 

 

Hopefully they'll still be updating the PH-1. 

[DrMacintosh]

What did everyone expect?

 

The market knows what is wants, and a phone designed to be more affordable just does not sell in droves. They just don't. 

 

Also Essential, like every other OEM, had to struggle to set itself apart from their direct competitors. They had basically no ad campaign, and very little market appeal to make them viable. 

 

It would be awesome to have another OEM out there that offers well priced phones, but only the established brands really have a shot at making that price bracket. Beating the "brand marketshare" of a company like Samsung when considering a mid tier phone is really hard to do. 

 

The Essential Phone does look pretty slick though, not gonna lie. Looking good isn't enough though. 

 

 

[Enderman]

36 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Man, this sucks. The Essential is a sick device, and I was planning to pick one up (low price and all, and I cracked my Redmi's screen). FeelsBadMan 

 

Hopefully they'll still be updating the PH-1. 

It's basically stock android, I got my 8.0 update like a few days after it was released

Next best thing to a pixel phone.

[mrchow19910319]

You see a lot of chinese engineers and  chinese people on essentials phone's website and you dont have to be a genius to figure out that this company is just a money grabbing tool. Investors hope that using android creators name to grab some money quick and easy. And they out sourced a lot of stuff to china. 

 

This is just my speculation. 

 

 

Cant say that I am surprised. 

[Shadestones]

Wow, I'm genuinely surprised. I assumed their products were more well received than this.

 

It's hard to really set yourself apart from the bunch when there's another 20-something Android phone makers competing with you.

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

What did everyone expect?

 

The market knows what is wants, and a phone designed to be more affordable just does not sell in droves. They just don't. 

 

Also Essential, like every other OEM, had to struggle to set itself apart from their direct competitors. They had basically no ad campaign, and very little market appeal to make them viable. 

 

It would be awesome to have another OEM out there that offers well priced phones, but only the established brands really have a shot at making that price bracket. Beating the "brand marketshare" of a company like Samsung when considering a mid tier phone is really hard to do. 

 

The Essential Phone does look pretty slick though, not gonna lie. Looking good isn't enough though. 

 

 

and yet Xiaomi went from nothing to fifth (or fourth) largest globally.

[GoldenLag]

i though maybe the Essential phone could be what the surface lineup was supposed to be. A trend setter of sorts, and pioneering within the certain market (as much as making a slightly taller screen is pioneering). 

 

they did set a trend however. probably one of the more disliked trends after the removal of headphone jacks (thanks certain companies). this trend is known as Notch, and is not reffering to the Minecraft developer

[Doobeedoo]

Shame, the phone is really sleek and well built also software. 

[D13H4RD]

That's really sad.....but I also kinda foresaw it.

 

The company had a really rocky start. It missed deadlines for releasing the device, had a couple of exec departures and when the phone was launched, it was panned through and through for its camera and its initial sales was extremely poor, to the point where they had to cut the price down to the sub-$400 range, which probably wasn't very profitable.

 

It may be a dang good phone that's severely underrated for its price point, but actually, this statement sums it up quite well, from an unexpected person.

8 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

It would be awesome to have another OEM out there that offers well priced phones, but only the established brands really have a shot at making that price bracket. Beating the "brand marketshare" of a company like Samsung when considering a mid tier phone is really hard to do.

That's the issue. Essential had little-to-no ads running for it, and it was mainly sold as an unlocked device, which in a market dominated by people who buy their phones off a carrier, limits its appeal. And while they did sell it on a carrier, it was Sprint, which was severely small potatoes in terms of market share.

 

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

and yet Xiaomi went from nothing to fifth (or fourth) largest globally.

Xiaomi did it in a different way.

 

They were known for making good stuff at really cheap prices, but they also sold their phones through flash sales at the time. It drummed up lots of hype and publicity for the company, which eventually increased their mindshare.

 

Not saying Essential should've done a flash sale, because that would utterly fail in the US (ask LeEco), but marketing plays a huge role when selling phones.

[GoodBytes]

The phone had nothing to really different itself sadly. It was  "just another Android phone" seen by the masses. It didn't help at all, when first impression are critical, especially for a new comer, that they delivered devices where the camera app/drivers were not in a complete state and the picture quality was lackluster for the target priced phone.  They should have waiting the device is complete before delivering review units. And the lack of headphone plug didn't help for them (maybe if it tried to be different, like 2x USB Type-C, might have been a more interesting move, but I don't know... I am saying that it would be "the solution", just saying it would be different, so it would be at least something to start with).

 

Competition is crazy on Android devices. It always was, and the Essential phone didn't bring anything new on the table to make Android better or improve the experience or give a reason for consumer to pick it instead of another phone from a trusted, proven company, that you know will be there for support and update after you purchase the unit (issue that affect all new player in any field, that is why it is important that a new comer brings onto the table a value proposition that is very interesting, to offset this concern from consumers).

 

That, or the founder of the company was hopping to be bought by another company since day 1, but sadly didn't happen, and now up it up for sale at a low price.

[S w a t s o n]

Pretty sure if they launched at the nerf'd price it could have been a success. Really unfortunate as the PH-1 had the best industrial design of any android smartphone, only the ID of the iPhone X compared in my mind

[Nowak]

• Tease a new phone
• Be silent about it for months
• Announce new phone
• Be silent about it for longer
• Announce a range of modular accessories, including a headphone jack, 360 camera and some unannounced ones from third parties
• Be silent about it for even longer
• Finally release it, but in only one color
• The camera sucks, the phone lags despite running high-end hardware and a clean build of Android and the phone has reception issues. Also, it has an ugly notch.
• Other colors come out, but not the ones people actually wanted, and one was an Amazon exclusive
• Phone's not selling because it's a new company, there's no ad campaign, it got bad reviews and more anticipated phones launched between the time it was announced and the time it launched
• Only the 360 camera launches, none of the other modular accessories ever materialize
• They're updating the phone, fixing issues and being communicative on Reddit. Cool. That doesn't sell phones tho.

I wonder why Essential failed.

[D13H4RD]

39 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

• Snip

You know, I get the impression that the company is run by people who really know how to make exquisite hardware but is not that proficient in software and is clueless when it comes to sales. 

 

I think their decision to make it exclusive to Sprint other than an unlocked model wasn't a great decision 

[Nowak]

2 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I think their decision to make it exclusive to Sprint other than an unlocked model wasn't a great decision 

You could buy it unlocked, and it worked on all carriers (including Verizon!), but most Americans are still used to buying phones from their carrier rather than unlocked phones. Doesn't help that the largest carrier, Verizon, has historically been hostile to unlocked phones that they themselves don't sell.

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, NowakVulpix said:

You could buy it unlocked, and it worked on all carriers (including Verizon!), but most Americans are still used to buying phones from their carrier rather than unlocked phones. Doesn't help that the largest carrier, Verizon, has historically been hostile to unlocked phones that they themselves don't sell.

And that's the issue. 

 

It was sold in just Sprint stores carrier-wise. Exclusivity deals for phones don't usually guarantee success, especially since Sprint is probably the smallest of the 4 major carriers excluding US Cellular. 

[Nowak]

5 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

And that's the issue. 

 

It was sold in just Sprint stores carrier-wise. Exclusivity deals for phones don't usually guarantee success, especially since Sprint is probably the smallest of the 4 major carriers excluding US Cellular. 

Yuppppp. And that's why people keep pushing for the Pixel to not be a Verizon "exclusive", because even with the Verizon deal they're only selling 4 million phones a year.

 

But that brings up the whole "Americans don't buy unlocked phones" issue.

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

Yuppppp. And that's why people keep pushing for the Pixel to not be a Verizon "exclusive", because even with the Verizon deal they're only selling 4 million phones a year.

 

But that brings up the whole "Americans don't buy unlocked phones" issue.

Because it's easier to just walk into a carrier store and get one on a monthly payment plan for the average Joe. 

 

My phones have always been unlocked, but I know I'm far from the norm 

[Nowak]

7 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Because it's easier to just walk into a carrier store and get one on a monthly payment plan for the average Joe. 

 

My phones have always been unlocked, but I know I'm far from the norm 

That's true. Also, Verizon hates the whole "bring your own device" thing.

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, NowakVulpix said:

That's true. Also, Verizon hates the whole "bring your own device" thing.

Verizon hates anything that's user-friendly 

 

Same goes for most carriers. 

[Nowak]

Just now, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Verizon hates anything that's user-friendly 

 

Same goes for most carriers. 

Yup... 

[abazigal]

It was an android phone priced at iPhone levels. This thing was doomed to fail right from the start.