由 Android 之父 “Andy Rubin” 有份創辦的 Essential 公司決定終止業務運作並關閉公司。
Essential 公司在 2017 推出了首部亦是公司唯一一部電話 Essential Phone PH-1，鈦金屬陶瓷機身，頂級規格配置並採用 Edge-to-edge 屏幕。發佈時確實眼前一亮，但坊間反應郤平平，最主要批評是相機質素，但 Essential 公司提供的較件更新速度郤廣獲稱讚，每個月的安全更新都跟 Google 同步。
Essential 公司上年十月還透露了一個名為 Project GEM 的新計劃，是將電話硬件, 軟件以至雲端運用重新設計以配合用家的日常生活，不過計劃未能推進，最終 Essential 公司決定要終止業務運作並關閉。
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 people’s lifestyle needs. 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.
至於 Essential Phone 往後不會再有更新，2月份的安全更新是最後一次更新。Essential 公司已將 prebuilt vendor image 以及其他檔案資料上載上 GitHub 以讓其他開發人員可以繼續作 Third-party 開發。
Source: Essential