Items tagged with Andy Rubin
Things over at Essential have been relatively quiet since the company's original smartphone launched two years ago with a Snapdragon 835 SoC and one of the very first appearances of a notched display. While the original Essential Phone PH-1 has long since been discontinued, CEO Andy Rubin made it clear that a successor was in development and we're seeing the first fruits of those labors with what is called Project Gem. Rubin tweeted a number of images of the elongated smartphone, which is not quite like anything that we've seen before. The display has an especially tall and narrow display, which Rubin admits is a "radically different form-factor". Looking at the various images and video...
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Andy Rubin and crew expected big things when they started Essential and created a smartphone that aimed to be different from other devices on the market, but things didn't go their way. Consumers didn't flock to the new company the father of Android created, and sales for the phone were poor. In May of this year, Essential announced that it had canceled its second-generation phone and was considering a sale. Fast forward a few months and Essential had announced layoffs, despite having delivered the headphone accessory that it had promised for its smartphone. Today, Essential has now announced that it isn't making the Essential Phone anymore but there's perhaps still hope. The upside for fans...
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If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, right? Andy Rubin and his company, Essential, are taking that advice to heart after the company's first generation Essential Phone failed to disrupt the smartphone market. Essential is not finished building mobile devices. The company's next phone will take another stab at disrupting the competitive landscape, this time by leaning heavily on artificial intelligence. AI seems to be the go-to technology these days. Google's recently introduced Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, for example, leverage AI to help combat against spam calls. And practically every smartphone these days has some sort of digital assistant, be it Siri, Bixby, or whatever. According to...
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You can bet that Essential in its current form is not what Andy Rubin and his team initially had in mind. The company happily trotted out its Essential Phone only to see the device tank on the market and sell fewer than 90,000 units in all of 2017. The poor sales of the device have reportedly led Essential to stop development on its second-generation smartphone and to consider selling its assets. The uncertainty in what will happen to the company hasn’t prevented Essential from following up with one of the more anticipated accessories for its smartphone. Essential has now confirmed the coming of the second of its attachment accessories for the smartphone and this one is a wired headphone...
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The Essential Phone was supposed to make a big splash in the flagship Android smartphone arena last year. After all, it was developed by the father of Android: Andy Rubin. However, shipping delays, early concerns over the phone's camera quality, and a high price tag hampered the Essential Phone's traction right out of the gate. Now, we're learning that sales of the smartphone have been downright dreadful. From its July 2017 introduction through the end of the year, only 88,000 units were sold according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. To put that in perspective, Apple sold 22.39 million iPhones during the last quarter of 2017 alone. . @Arubin's @essential smartphone is still a...
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Cyber Monday deals are in the air, and that is especially true for the Essential Phone. Once billed as a flagship killer from Andy Rubin that had the chops to stand toe-to-toe with the best smartphones in the industry, the Essential Phone has essentially been left behind as flashier competitors like the Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone X have entered the fray. However, the Essential Phone does have one thing on its side at the moment: enviable pricing for a flagship smartphone. For Cyber Monday, Amazon is selling the device for the low, low price of $399 unlocked. That's an all-time low for the smartphone (if you don't count the Friends and Family discount code). What makes the deal at Amazon so attractive...
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Andy Rubin is the father of Android and he and his company, Essential, decided not too long ago to try and break up the Samsung and Apple duopoly with a new smartphone. Things didn't go so well right out of the gate. Now, Essential has decided to price their device more realistically, which could spark a new wave of interest from cautious consumers. Essential is selling the unlocked device directly on its website at a $200 discount making the phone $499. That is a much more appealing amount than the $699 launch price. The original price put the device right in line with other more established and popular devices making the Essential Phone a hard sell. This direct price cut on the smartphone...
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Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android and CEO of Essential, issued an apology after his smartphone company accidentally leaked out private data from dozens of customers to other customers. What happened was sort of akin to mass emailing a large group and forgetting to BCC everyone, leaving their email addresses in plain site to one another. Only in this case, it involved more than email addresses.Image Source: Flickr (Joi Ito) "Yesterday, we made an error in our customer care function that resulted in personal information from approximately 70 customers being shared with a small group of other customers. We have disabled the misconfigured account and have taken steps internally to add safeguards...
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Andy Rubin, one of co-founders of Android, made waves after he left Google, started a new company called Essential Products, and then announced a new smartphone called the Essential Phone. Some of those waves subsided, however, when Rubin and company failed to launch the phone on time. Now a month and a half removed from when it was originally scheduled to ship, Rubin says the Essential Phone will be out in the US in a week. The upcoming release was revealed in an email sent out to potential buyers who pre-registered to receive more information and/or pre-ordered the device. Here is the full text of the email: Great news, your phone has been built! We now just need your payment details and we...
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Andy Rubin has a lot riding on his Essential Phone. First announced at the end of May, it was promised that the flagship smartphone would be shipping within 30 days. Well, June has come and gone, and we’re nearly finished with July and the phone still hasn’t shipped. What’s going on? Well, Rubin is giving an update of sorts on the Essential Phone through emails being sent to all of those that preordered the device. According to the email, there are some certification hurdles with regards to domestic (U.S.) and international carriers that is slowing down the release of the smartphone. Rubin goes on to say that the Essential Phone will begin shipping “in a few weeks”. At this point, it looks as...
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If you have had your eyes on Andy Rubin’s Essential Phone, we might have some bad news to bring you this morning. It is being reported that the Essential Phone will launch as a carrier-exclusive for fourth-place U.S. wireless carrier Sprint. Now before you get your pitchforks out, let us remember that you can still purchase the Essential Phone direct from Essential, and it will work on all four major wireless carriers. However, for those that don’t want to drop $700 on a brand-new smartphone all at once, your only bet is to get one from Sprint where you will be able to take advantage of any special pricing offers and installment plans to pay the device off over the course of 24 months. Most smartphones...
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Andy Rubin Takes Page From Legere’s Playbook And Hopes Essential Will Break Up Apple-Samsung Duopoly
Are you tired of the current smartphone offerings from the Apple-Samsung duopoly? Andy Rubin, the creator of Google’s Android, may have the right product for you. His startup just introduced its new premium-tier device, the Essential Phone. Rubin recently remarked at the Wired conference, “I think when there's this duopoly with these two guys owning 40 percent of the market, this complacency sets in. And that's the perfect time to start a company with this. Some people are complacent and it needs to be disrupted.” Much like third-place U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile and its brash CEO John Legere have thought outside the box to counter big guns Verizon and AT&T, Rubin wants to be a disrupter. Rubin...
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Android co-founder Andy Rubin has returned to the spotlight with his new company, Essential, and he’s making waves with the official unveil of his Essential Phone. This is a true flagship smartphone that is powered by the Android operating system (near-stock, of course) and packs in all the latest hardware and a clean, industrial design. The chiseled frame is constructed of titanium and ceramic materials, which should enable it to be more durable than its aluminum-clad competition. Essential proudly displays how an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy aluminum unibody frames will show visible damage (pitting) from drop tests, while the Essential Phone survives the same tests unscathed. On the front, you’ll...
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Once again, Andy Rubin, the co-creator of Android and former boss of Google's Android division has taken to Twitter in order to tease a smartphone being developed at Essential, a new company he started last year. Essential joined Twitter in November 2016 and has just two tweets, both of which were posted in the past 24 hours "to let you know something big is coming May 30th." We heard you @renan_batista - here's something to hold you over until next week: pic.twitter.com/QSIeXyjKNq — Essential (@essential) May 25, 2017 The most recent tweet shows a darkened image of a smartphone with an odd protrusion at the top. While Rubin did not offer up any clues as to what that might be, the consensus on...
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Andy Rubin, the co-creator of Android and former boss of Google's Android division, is making progress on his new venture. He announced in January that he was starting a new company, Essential, and planned to released a high-end smartphone infused to the core with artificial intelligence. He also said it would feature a large edge-to-edge to display. Well, he provided the public with the first glimpse of the new smartphone, or at least part of it. All that is visible in the photo he posted to Twitter is the corner section of the handset. However, that's enough to tease the bezel-less display, along with white text showing the time, remaining battery life, and network connectivity. We're assuming...
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The mobile market is flooded with smartphone makers, many of which are focused on Android handsets. Does it really need another one? That's up for debate, though if there's one person you'd want to see make a run at building Android phones, it would be Andy Rubin, who co-founded Android before it was purchased by Google. It may happen.Known as the father of Android, word on the web is that Rubin has been talking about starting up a new phone company. Citing "people in the mobile industry," The Informant says Rubin has even tried recruiting talent for the proposed outfit, though no specific names have been thrown around.Should this come to fruition, the venture would likely receive startup capital...
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In addition to new device announcements and technology reveals, some interesting revelations are coming out of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week. One of those is the number of Android activations that occur on a daily basis. According to Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google who oversees the development of Android, fans of the open-source platform are activating more than 850,000 devices every day. "There are over 450,000 applications in Android Market. Some of the developers who built these apps are showing their latest and greatest in the Android stand. But the ecosystem doesn't sleep. Our partners have activated a total of 300 million Android phones! Currently...
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Watch out team iOS, because the Android army is getting stronger by the day. We're not talking just a few hundred devices either, or even a few thousand. Try 500,000 new Android activations every 24 hours. What's more, Google says that number is climbing. "There are now over 500,000 Android devices activated every day, and it's growing at 4.4 percent w/w," Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, announced in a Twitter post. If you think back to Google's I/O Conference last month, the sultan of search said it was activating 400,000 Android devices each day, up from 300,000 daily activations in December and 100,000 per day a year ago. That shows you the kind of explosive growth taking...
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