Essential Is Shutting Down; Essential Phone Software Updates Ceased
Feb. 13, 2020Essential Products announced today that thecompany is discontinuing operations and shutting down. The news comes merely a few months after the company teased its tall prototype deviceProject GEM.
“Despite our best efforts, we’ve 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.”, wrote the company in an official blog post.
With this announcement,Project GEM bites the dust and will never become a reality. In the same blog post, the company posted a few videos that depict the Gem phone’s hardware, voice mode, camera, software and app integrations.
Essential has been regular in terms of software updates for its first phone — the Essential PH-1. In fact, Essential Phone users received theAndroid 10update on thesame day as Pixel devices. The company notes on its blog post that theEssential Phone will no longer be receiving software updates and security patcheshenceforth.
That is, the February security patch that rolled out earlier this month will remain to be the last update for the handset. However,Essential will be hosting the vendor image and all the necessary tools required for custom ROM developmenton itsGitHubpage.
Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.
