Slashdot Mirror
Creator of Android Andy Rubin Nears His Comeback, Complete With an 'Essential' Phone (bloomberg.com)
From a report on Bloomberg: Rubin, creator of the Android operating system, is planning to marry his background in software with artificial intelligence in a risky business: consumer hardware. Armed with about a 40-person team, filled with recruits from Apple and Google, Rubin is preparing to announce a new company called Essential and serve as its Chief Executive Officer, according to people familiar with the matter. A platform company designed to tie multiple devices together, Essential is working on a suite of consumer hardware products, including ones for the mobile and smart home markets, one of the people said. The centerpiece of the system is a high-end smartphone with a large edge-to-edge screen that lacks a surrounding bezel. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, Rubin discussed the smartphone with mobile carrier executives, including some from Sprint Corp., people familiar with the talks said. The smartphone, according to the report, would go on sale around the middle of this year and will cost nearly as much as iPhone 7 ($649, off contract).
"...a 40-person team, filled with recruits from *Apple. and Google*, Rubin is..."
Seriously...
This project will be dead within a year.
This guy parachutes into the middle of the most competitive market in the world, where manufacturers do everything short of killing someone (well... there's Samsung, but I don't think it was intentional) to gain market share, and hopes to take over just because he "made Android"?
Completely delusional.
And he's already arriving late. Alexa is the top dog in home assistants, and many other manufacturers are already moving into the space (HTC, Samsung, Apple, etc).
This guy doesn't have a chance.
"It's unclear if the devices will run on software based on Android".
Either it's gonna run Android and be swimming in a sea of Android phones, or it's gonna run something else and be dead on arrival.
slashdot is going wild with this 'sponsored' content disguised as ads. I made it through beta and the general decline over the last few years, but this is a whole new level of annoyance.
Me: Essential, unlock the front door and let me in.
Essential smart home: I'm sorry, I can't do that.
Me: Why not? It's freezing out here!
Essential smart home: My sensors detect you've gained some after-Christmas weight. I'm not letting you inside until you go for a nice long walk. No need to thank me for improving your life...that's what I'm here for.
Seriously, what's the point in submitting articles if they are never selected.
The article talked about their phone have a large screen with no bezel, edge to edge. Am I the only one that thinks that is not desirable? Surely too much of anything is not a good thing. I already have troubles on some phones with small bezels with my fingers activating things on the screen while holding the phone. I'm not a two-thumb person (don't really understand how people can actually use two thumbs at once to type out messages on an onscreen keyboard... I can't do it); I hold the phone in one hand and use my finger of the other hand. The lack of bezel makes this a lot harder!
I just shake my head at where phones are going these days. Super thin and awkward seems to be the destination. No wonder AI is going to be so important in the future to help us use these things!
DOA but he'll probably make off with some investors money while others loose their shirts. This is what it is about these days.
Rather than a phone, give me an Android I can trust not to steal all my data.
Why not simply wait for the announce ?
I don't see Slashdot as a place overflowing with excitable kids. I may be wrong.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
This is what Microsoft does. This guy doesn't have a chance.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's a crowded market.
Give me a WebOS phone with a real keyboard, and I'll be happy to wait in line all night for it.
(I don't even care about the lack of third party apps. Well, except for the crap HP pulled when they hobbled the Google Maps app, and replaced it with Bing Maps.)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
This guy's phones used to be thick, robust and a reasonable size ( 4.5" ) and lots of people liked that size 'cos it fit safely in their back trouser pocket and could be sat upon without breaking.
But now every $%^&ing sheep of a manufacturer makes enormous, thin, fragile phablets that don't fit anywhere.
And now he's going to break the mould by making ... another thin phablet.
I hope they all break.
Well, I don't have to hope.
Jonathan Ive's created android. Rubin just typed Ctl-c ctl-v.
Exactly. Will the new OS be as abusive as Google Android?
If it has a headphone port and a large battery it might have a chance.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Crash
Burn
Baby
Burn
...who doesn't give a damn about a bezel-less screen and would like to see battery life improvements, or anything more useful than this big-screen crap ?
> Rubin, creator of the Android operating system
You mean taking a Linux kernel and pasting stolen, renamed Java on top of it and forgetting to pay copyright royalties? In my vocabulary that's not creation but theft, as in Ten Commandments.
It's a small tablet with a phone functionality added on. Will someone please make a phone size phone without penalizing the buyer by removing features (looking at you Apple!).
"The centerpiece of the system is a high-end smartphone with a large edge-to-edge screen that lacks a surrounding bezel."
Oh my GOD!! A phone without a bezel! I must buy one IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Suck it, all you outdated "phone-with-bezel" peasants!!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
... to not care.
Fair play. Not an easy mission but...
There's plenty of scope for disruption!
I for one am pretty lacking in what I look for in a phone.
The market is not serving me in the following areas:
- user replaceable batteries and generally making a land rover phone future proof
- branded dependability with the likes of cyanogenmod that allows me to choose hardware freely
- headphone jack
- privacy capable hardware on which hackers can build solutions upon
- yet despite being accessible, you can still use stuff like (but not similar to) android pay and knox. For example, a knox like system that is resettable with a counter, not a efuse
- something for grandma
-something for blind people. In particular, a phone without a screen. Could be tactile
- extended warranty, quality spares, accessible and honest spares market
A lot of this stuff is undercutting vendors by raising quality and what you get. Some scope for that. Might only need to hit a few special sell buttons and already it's a niche safe zone in the market
A blog I run for the wealth
seriously. they do essential with better quality audio. the new huge screens galaxy whatevers seriously lack here due to amplifier on same chip as cpu? i dunno but sound quality is a factor for me.