
Essential shutting down after failing to launch ‘GEM’ smartphone - minimaxir
https://9to5google.com/2020/02/12/essential-shutting-down/
======
dangus
Can’t say that’s a surprise.

I wasn’t following the Gem but I sure wonder what the appeal of a skinny phone
was supposed to be.

It’s like trying to make a two door minivan. All phones look the same just
like how all cars look the same for a reason - we have converged on the most
useful design that works for everyone.

~~~
andrepd
Speak for yourself. It drives me absolutely insane that I simply _cannot_ buy
a recent phone today which is smaller than the largest phablets sold in 2014.
This is bonkers.

~~~
coldpie
My kingdom for a phone with stock Android and a 4.7" display.

~~~
wmf
Get an XZ1 Compact and put a GSI on it. I gave in and got an S10e which is
only slightly larger but is all screen.

~~~
neltnerb
I look periodically to see if anything has changed.

[https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2018&fDisplay...](https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2018&fDisplayInchesMax=5&sOSes=2&sOSversions=2910,2900)

Nope. Literally seven phones, with the search just limited to sub 5" diagonal,
Android 9 or 10, and a release in the last two years.

My phone now is an Xperia X Compact. Based on that list of seven the Xperia
XZ2 Compact would be my next choice. Which actually looks like a fine phone,
but not much of an upgrade versus what I already have. And it's from 2018
anyway, feels kind of silly to upgrade from a phone from 2017 to a phone from
2018 in 2020.

Librem... if you're listening... I'll pay _extra_ for a phone that's under a
5" diagonal. You can quote me on that and call it a pre-order.

I don't have market research to back it up, but I do hear more and more people
basically saying they haven't bought a new phone in years because they're all
too big. Do they not include people who wear women's clothing in their market
testing?

~~~
andrepd
Don't filter by screen size, filter by physical size instead (phones are
getting ever better in screen/size ratio). I also filter by RAM>3GB:
[https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2018&nHeightM...](https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2018&nHeightMax=145&nWidthMax=68&nRamMin=4000&sOSes=2)

~~~
usrusr
Those interested in small phones are usually looking for one-handed operation
and zero-width bezels are not the right tool for that.

------
chambo622
Andy Rubin may have gotten this company off the ground but he ultimately was
the cause of its demise. I wouldn't ever buy a product from this company.

[https://www.wired.com/story/andy-rubins-essential-gem-
google...](https://www.wired.com/story/andy-rubins-essential-gem-google-
android/)

~~~
namirez
Exactly! I bought the first Essential Phone, PH-1, because I liked the design
of it and wanted to support a new product. And to be honest, it's a decent
phone, but that was before his misconduct came out to the media. Once it came
out, my girlfriend asked me if I still wanted to support this company and at
that point I knew I would never buy another phone from them.

------
dmreedy
A real bummer. For me, the PH-1 was the only truly beautiful current-
generation phone out there, since Windows Phone shut down. I can live with a
not-so-great camera, especially if it means I don't need a camera wart. With
an OLED screen, the PH-1 would have been, to my mind, perfect. And,
unfortunately, no one else is making anything that looks quite like it.

I understand (phone) aesthetics are not universal, and usually (and probably
rightly) considered secondary to more practical, functional considerations,
but man, it was nice having a company that carried that standard. Don't think
any of the other angles they were trying to pursue made much sense, but thanks
for making something beautiful, even if it ended up being only briefly.

~~~
baybal2
PH-1 has a hole in the display — very weird design choice, and it probably
costs a fortune to custom order displays like that.

~~~
sp332
Samsung takes a normal display and knocks out the pixels over the camera with
a laser.

------
crazygringo
I mean, the phone looks _super_ cool if all you want to do is use it for is a
phone and music player.

But the super-weird keyboard means typing (like replying to texts and e-mails)
takes a ton of getting used to... and the narrowness means you can't really
browse the web. Even reading a basic news article becomes frustrating with
only three words to a line. (Or five lines to a screen in landscape mode.)

And given that most people spend way more time texting and reading the news on
their phone than making calls... it's crazy to me they ever had user research
indicating this ever had a chance of succeeding in the first place.

~~~
npunt
I'm not sure what market research inspired the phone, but there's probably a
segment of people where pretty severe constraints are considered a positive,
primarily to reduce device usage, either as your only device or a device you
just use in certain contexts.

I don't want the temptation of the web and apps when I'm getting ready to go
to sleep, but I do want basic functions like phone, controlling my lights and
music, etc. For this use case, the candybar form factor is excellent.

~~~
matthewfcarlson
This is exactly my thought process. Well put!

~~~
cevn
In landscape mode, you could control multiple at once with a good UI. I want
one.

------
gregwebs
I have used the Essential Phone for a few years now. The experience has been
great in every dimension except for the one thing many people care the most
about: the camera. The camera app the phone is shipped with is horrible. I
really don't know how they expected to sell it as a high-end phone. The crazy
thing is that there are some builds of the Google Camera app that you can find
which make the pictures really good (it is definitely still really bad in low
light conditions though).

~~~
Uhhrrr
Maybe second most after the phone part?

Although for me specifically, the order would be text, phone, email, camera.

~~~
0xffff2
Does anyone really care about the phone part of "phones" anymore? Even my
parents text me far more often than they call these days. I'm sure I'm an
outlier, but I would say browsing, email, text, nav, camera, ..., phone.
Honestly with the ratio of spam phone calls I receive, I might prefer a smart
"phone" that didn't even accept incoming calls.

~~~
filoleg
Agreed, but I have some more reasons for why the "phone" part of the phone
isn't really much of a factor when it comes to buying a phone these days.

At this point in time, texting+phone parts of the phone are pretty good and
uniform across all devices, so it isn't a differentiating factor that people
care about anymore imo. The only "texting" part of the modern phones that is
still somewhat of a differentiator is iMessages, but that's about it.

------
khazhoux
I just hope Cosmo and Henry land on their feet.

[https://www.essential.com/about#team](https://www.essential.com/about#team)

~~~
tempsy
Oh man, I just saw one of the product exec's LinkedIn and he spent 3 years at
Juicero before spending 3 years at Essential.

That's gotta hurt.

If you're a reasonably talented product & engineering person don't work for a
hardware startup. Startups are lottos already as is but hardware is so
unforgiving. I think Ring's acquisition by Amazon was the last one I can think
that was a true success.

~~~
jennyyang
I worked with him at Google. He is exceptionally smart and a great person to
work with.

~~~
6nf
I don't know anyone who seriously thought that Juicero was a good business
idea

~~~
nmfisher
I mean, I thought (and still think) that Twitch was a terrible business idea -
something I'm clearly very very wrong about. Equally, there are dozens of
business ideas that I thought were fantastic, but are dead in the water.

Sometimes it's good to acknowledge that your foresight can be wrong. I think
engineers in particular can be overly pessimistic.

Why not occasionally take a risk on someone else's gut feeling? You won't
always win, but "losing" means enjoying a cushy, well-paid office job for 2-3
years before moving on the next thing. It's hardly the end of the earth.

------
nikkwong
Seems like this was pretty doomed from the get-go. Right off the bat the
entire internet would be broken on these phones, as I doubt any websites are
designed to handle a ~100px wide viewport. Even designing sites for 320px
viewports of the iphone4 is massively challenging and not well implemented by
many. Not sure how they planned on handling that.

~~~
mumblemumble
It's not _that_ hard, as long as you don't try to do things that nobody ever
wanted in the first place, like floating Google and Facebook buttons on the
left hand side of the page.

~~~
jakequade
I see you've never designed anything frontend, ever.

------
VHRanger
I've had an essential phone since its release and overall I've been very happy
about it. Too bad it's shutting down.

I can also say Im not surprised at a the company is shutting down - - their
strategic decisions were downright idiotic after the essential phone's initial
release. They should have just made a great second iteration instead of
getting distracted with shiny toys.

~~~
stevenwliao
The first phone only sold 150,000 units over its lifetime, even after a fire
sale. It's reasonable to conclude that iterating on the same concept won't
create enough sales.

Source: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/andy-
rubi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/andy-rubin-s-
phone-maker-essential-is-said-to-consider-sale)

------
christefano
That’s a real shame about Newton Mail. Anything that provides more user choice
and adds innovation in a saturated market is a good thing in my book. I hope
Essential open sources it, as well.

From TFA:

“As part of the company wind down, the security update for PH-1 released on
February 3 is the last update from the Essential software team. Your PH-1 will
continue to work but we will not be providing any additional updates or
customer support. Current Newton Mail users will have access to the service
through April 30, 2020. For developer fans, a prebuilt of our vendor image and
everything else needed to keep hacking on PH-1 will be hosted on our github.”

~~~
notyourday
It is too bad they don't release all the source code.

~~~
newnewpdro
This is a big part of why it's so important we support efforts like the pine
phone and librem 5.

When these companies go belly up the perfectly functional devices we _own_
shouldn't become effectively unservicable.

~~~
notyourday
They need to start by having a _working computer in a form of a phone_ that
runs Android applications from Google Play, has support for 4G LTE. Until that
happens, pine phone and librem are non-starters.

------
matthewfcarlson
This is personally very disappointing to me. Like many others on the thread,
I've been following the Project GEM fairly closely (as close as you could
given the lack of information) and was planning on buying at least one this
year. I loved the idea of the tall form factor. I want to do less web browsing
and video watching on my phone and more listening to music and quickly
managing my life. I know I have very long fingers and large hands, so the
larger phones feel fine in my hand, but are a pain to carry since they are
heavy and take up a lot of space in my pants pocket.

------
greatjack613
As much as the essential phone lacked, the clean android, edge to edge
display, and ceramic feel were really awesome.

This is really sad news for me to hear.

I currently use the ph-1 as my android developer device and am really
disappointed that we are not getting a successor.

Any recommendations for a new android device that has a clean non bloated
android build, as well as long term android updates?

~~~
ericabiz
We run repair shops, so I get to hear all sorts of feedback about Android
phones from customers. The Pixel 3A is definitely the most popular and budget-
friendly "clean Android" phone out there right now. Pixel 4 is out as well
now, but less popular thanks to the higher price.

------
skaber
Used my Essential today to snap gorgeous 360 pics with the snap-on camera. I
think they had a good approach that could've lead to building a good
ecosystem. Not sure what I'll upgrade to after carrying the Essential...

~~~
jamiesonbecker
Why upgrade to anything else, until your Essential breaks?

Drive it like you stole it.. and there's always LineageOS[0], so you can keep
updating it basically forever, and since it was a flagship, the specs are
still pretty solid, even compared to mid-tier phones.

It's pretty hard to find a phone that has the stock Android experience, no
bloatware, and beautiful, powerful hardware for this kind of price ($150 on
Ebay for grade-A used), let alone one that has an awesome 360 camera and can
run nightly android builds.

0\.
[https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/mata](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/mata)

~~~
rohansingh
The problem is that stock Android on Essential will no longer receive security
updates. LineageOS will receive updates, but if you want to use things like
Google Pay or Netflix, you'll have to install kernel mods to trick SafetyNet
into thinking that it's not running LineageOS.

I'm almost OK with doing that, but I think it's a tall order my partner (non-
technical) who has been using an Essential.

~~~
VHRanger
If you're on the latest update, you're several years ahead of 90+% of Android
phones out there in terms of security updates

------
syntaxing
Such a shame, I had the PH-1 and to was the best <$300 phone. I loved their
commitment to updating Android. I remember getting Android 10 within the same
day the pixel phone officially got it. I wish they just updated the PH-1 with
a better camera (and app), processor, and maybe more storage (the default was
128GB!).

~~~
VHRanger
With the GCam apk the camera became entirely decent. The bad native camera was
largely bad HDR postprocessing

~~~
Outpox
I've downloaded the latest APK from apkmirror but the app is force closing at
launch on stock. It was the same 2 years ago when I first tried, is it working
for you? Do you have a suggestion?

EDIT: Ok so I've searched a bit on XDA and stumbled upon this:
[https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-
camera/dev...](https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/dev-
parrot043/)

The latest beta doesn't work but the one before it does work.

~~~
VHRanger
Yeah the version I'm using is ~9 months old from the XDA link.

Even GCam 5 and 6 perform better

------
azmenak
Had no idea they also owned Newton. Going to use this as yet another reminder
not to invest in new email clients, they all seem to get shut down within a
few years of launch.

~~~
KoftaBob
I mean outside of any specialized features that the email client hosts, the
majority of the functionality is local, no? So even if the email client is no
longer developed, it'll keep working as long as your email service works.

~~~
bdcravens
Back when I used it as Cloud Magic, they did auth through Google. I'm pretty
certain there's middleman processing going on.

------
FactolSarin
I was in the market for an Android phone a few months after the Essential came
out, and bought it at a much-reduced price. As others have said, it was a
really nice phone except for the camera.

I'm not sure exactly why it failed. I remember showing a friend a picture on
my phone once. His eyes opened wide and said, "That phone is all screen!" He
was amazed by it, in an era when most phones still had big bezels.

------
eyesbear
I interviewed with them for an engineer position back in 2018. My overall
impression was actually quite good. The interviewers I met all seem very smart
and experienced (a few with 20+ YOE at bigCo). I was quite bumped that I
didn’t get an offer, but it turned out to be a blessing I guess.

Maybe it also shows that just having smart people isn’t enough for a
company/product to succeed.

------
inasio
I had an essential phone from the first fire sale, was overall happy with it
but a few months in I went hiking and my pants got a bit wet from walking
though wet forest (wasn't raining) and the phone died. They were small enough
that nobody knew how to work on it (tried all the usual tricks). As other
people have mentioned, the phone was pretty good, except for the camera.

~~~
alex_free
You can’t even really work on it as opening it breaks the whole phone. ifixit
gave it a 1/10 score
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Essential+Phone+Teardown/967...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Essential+Phone+Teardown/96764)

~~~
mrpopo
The iFixit guide was b---s---, they froze the phone for no clear reason, and
destroyed the entire phone. I almost gave up on buying because of them. Here
is a tutorial by fixEZ. All you need is a heat gun (I used a hairdryer) and a
playing card.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCKxAQXdTJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCKxAQXdTJ8)

------
kraig911
I think the hardware phone market was just too competitive. While I was
hopeful they would make some awesome stuff. It's obvious when you're playing
with the giants of industries (Samsung, Apple) unless you have a super huge
value proposition that no one's thought about before the odds are stacked
against you.

------
salvagedcircuit
I can't say I'm a fan of this ruler aspect ratio phone. If Essential wanted to
exist in a crowded market, they didn't need to invent something new. Copy a
recently designed phone and just add a removable battery. No one else is doing
it. Instant success.

~~~
untog
As someone who thinks the iPhone SE is the ultimate form factor I’m
sympathetic to the “build it and they’ll come” argument but I don’t believe
it. The reason no one is making a phone with a removable battery is because
there isn’t a large enough market for it. These companies do a lot of market
research, if there was an opening in the market _someone_ would have
capitalised on it.

~~~
salvagedcircuit
I'm sure they do conduct a lot of research. However, I bet that research
points toward failing batteries after 1-2 years as the major driving force in
phone upgrading. If an OEM makes an easily removable battery phone, they are
essentially killing their chances of future sales. The Lg g5 is a good
argument to this case, but I feel it was mainly DOA because LG at the time was
not conducting enough testing on their phones (Bootloop problems).

~~~
untog
You can replace a phone battery even when it’s non-removable though. Apple
makes a nice little bit of extra money from it in fact.

------
aetherspawn
Cool design, but never heard of it. Maybe they failed because they didn’t go
worldwide quick enough to raise the interest they needed.

This could be an awesome compromise between lite phones that offer no everyday
utility and large phones that entirely consume your attention.

------
ArmandGrillet
Good time for an employee to write a book about Essential?

I would love to know more about Essential + the development process around the
PH1. Shipping such a product with a relatively small team must have been
challenging in many interesting ways.

------
cmarschner
It makes me mad that I can't buy a recent iPhone with headphone jack and USB
3. Instead I'm lured in to buying phones with a lightning port that fails
after 2 years, plus dongles, or expensive ear pods that fail after 2 years
(and which I will lose after 4 months). Meanwhile, the IPhone 6S is becoming
so slow with recent IOS releases that it stops being an option, too.

------
alvern
My biggest issue with the PH1 was the lack of cases. I work in an industrial
environment where I _need_ an otterbox or bulky protective case. The PH1 only
lasted for a month before I dropped it on a concrete floor and cracked the
screen.

------
yalogin
Was this ever not a strong possibility? Entering the world of Smartphones is
incredibly tough. When I first read about essential my thoughts weee this is
either going to sell to someone for pennies on the dollar or just shutdown.

------
goatsi
I'm not sure your "It's been an Incredible Journey" post is the appropriate
place to showcase marketing videos for a product you see "no clear path to
deliver it to customers".

Are they hoping for a last minute buyer?

~~~
jey
Maybe they're just sad to be shutting down and are proud of what they built.

------
xenospn
No one needs another Android phone. I wonder how they even thought about
selling more than several thousand units to early adopters?

------
dannyw
I would have never bought an Essential phone because of the sexual harassment
allegations that Google internally found credible. It’s just not the character
I can support.

Andy Rubin has never acknowledged his behaviour was wrong. He’s never
apologised, and maintains it is a “smear campaign”.

~~~
swalsh
I'm frustrated by this logic. On one level, you're punishing an entire company
because of the actions from one guy. Wouldn't it suck if your CEO committed
some offense, and you personally had to pay for it by losing your job?

Second, I simply do not feel it is my place as a consumer to punish a person
for his behavior. The legal system is in place to deal with this, and that
should be more than sufficient, and it's important that is the system used to
deal with the issue, because everyone has rights. The legal system is designed
to allow both parties to exercise their rights. Cowboy boycotts by consumers
are emotionally driven mobs. That's not justice.

Finally, we as a society used to believe in second chances. Once someone
commits an offense, usually they pay some price (maybe losing a job, going to
jail, paying a fine etc) and then we give them a chance to participate in our
society again. They don't always get all their previous privledges back. If
you commit a felony, you won't be able to own a firearm for example. But you
do get a another chance to be productive.

~~~
tempsy
I hope you're kidding but don't think you are. This guy doesn't need a second
chance - he has hundreds of million of dollars.

Anyone working at this company is smart enough to get a job anywhere else with
relative ease. I'm hardly worried about highly skilled people "losing their
job" \- at this point the ones that choose to stay are doing so for some
reason, not because they just need any random job.

~~~
swalsh
What about a secretary at the company? Is it fair if (s)he loses their job?
But what is it about being highly skilled which makes it okay that they should
have to uproot their lives? Just because I might not fall down does not imply
that I would enjoy being kicked.

I just don't feel like you're being morally consistent here. Sure I get having
empathy for the guys victim(s) (i have no idea what the details of the
situation here are). But there's two sides to the coin that are worth
considering.

~~~
smacktoward
There is something really unpleasant about seeing ordinary people held up as
human shields to defend the noxious actions of the rich.

------
jonathaneunice
Not sure "An Update" quite captures "we're shutting down; there'll be no more
updates; you have 68 days to retrieve your data."

~~~
opencl
There's not really any data to retrieve. Newton Mail is an email client rather
than an email service. Oddly they had announced a shutdown about a year and a
half ago but Essential bought them out right before the shutdown and kept it
going until now.

------
umvi
Better title: "Essential to cease operations and shutdown"

------
dang
We've changed the URL from [https://www.essential.com/blog/essential-
update](https://www.essential.com/blog/essential-update) to an article that
says more directly what's happening. The site guidelines call for original
sources
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html))
but corporate press releases increasingly feel like an exception to this rule.
Maybe it's because they're as much a mask for information as a source of it.

If anyone can suggest a better URL, we can change it again. I just picked the
first item from some search results.

~~~
ipsum2
I thought the first paragraph of the original article (from essential.com)
explained things pretty clearly:

> Given this, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations and
> shutdown Essential.

~~~
dang
That's fair. On reflection I suppose I was reacting mostly to the title and
the fact that comments like
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22311295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22311295)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22311297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22311297)
were showing up in the thread. Perhaps a title change would have sufficed in
this case. When I said that the genre of official corporate announcements
tends not to have a great track record, I was speaking generally.

~~~
zitterbewegung
For what it is worth I think you did the right thing.

------
taytus
So...they weren't essential after all.

~~~
jabbany
Essential in the sense of "the essence of", like how it's used in "essential
oils"

