Essential Closes Its Doors And Ends Support for Devices

Essential was started by Andy Rubin, the father of Android OS, back in 2015. Ultimately the company was unable to build a smartphone that users were interested in, in the numbers that it needed. The company has now announced that it is shutting down and won’t be providing any more updates for existing devices.

The announcement means that owners of the PH-1 smartphone will be left in the cold and need to upgrade their devices. It also means that no other smartphones are coming from the company. Essential wrote on its website:

“In October, we introduced Project GEM, a new mobile experience that our hardware, software and cloud teams have been building and testing for the past few years. Our vision was to invent a mobile computing paradigm that more seamlessly integrated with peoples lifestyle needs. Despite our best efforts, weve 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 also noted that the update delivered on February 3 for the PH-1 is the last update that will be delivered. The smartphone will continue to work, but there will be no new updates or customer support. Newton Mail users will have access to the service through April 30, 2020 reports Wccftech.