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Andy Rubin AMA: Oreo coming soon as more features planned for Essential Phone, updates on Europe, Verizon, accessories

Earlier today, Andy Rubin and several executives from Essential hosted an AMA on Reddit to primarily discuss the Essential Phone. Notable highlights from the session include when the Android Oreo update is coming, as well as when the phone will be supported on Verizon, as well as European availability.

Along with Rubin, there were four other executives answering questions from the community:

  • Linda Jiang, Essential’s Head of Industrial Design
  • Dave Evans, Essential’s VP of Design
  • Rebecca Zavin, Essential’s VP of Software
  • Joe Tate, Essential’s VP of Hardware

Rubin answered a fair number of questions and again defended the camera hardware, while acknowledging that the processing and algorithms will be improved through software updates. On the availability front, he told Verizon customers that carrier approval could be coming as soon as tomorrow, while Essential is working on launching in Europe.

Camera criticism + future plans

Hi! We are pretty happy with the hardware design of the camera. We are using computational photography to fuse a monochrome and color sensors. That’s the part we’re not too happy about, but luckily it’s software and we’ve already done a number of updates to the app to fix bug and add features. – andyR

Verizon support

We have been in the certification process with Verizon and are at the tail end. Could come as soon as tomorrow! These certifications really help enhance our overall quality, so your patience will pay off! – andyR

European availability

Working on it as a priority. –andyR

Meanwhile, other members of team discussed that Android Oreo could be coming as soon as next month and that they are considering a beta program, like Google does for the Pixel and Nexus. Other topics include support for the ROM community and more software features.

Android Oreo availability + kernels and factory images

We are excited about supporting 3rd party developers. We’ll be releasing our kernel and factory images in the next few days. Android O will be coming in the next month or two. –Rebecca

Project Treble

Yes, but some of our HALs will be passthrough when we release O. We are committed to doing better and better over time, but we also want to get O to you as soon as possible. –Rebecca

Software features

You can double tap the power button to launch camera. We are also looking at adding some other good stuff like fingerprint gestures to pull down the notification shade. Keep your eyes out for updates! –Rebecca

On the hardware front, more accessories that take advantage of Essential’s Click connector are coming. The first will be a charging dock, but a “high end audio accessory” with a 3.5mm jack is also in the works. As for what’s coming next hardware-wise, Essential’s Design VP made note of “next-gen products” that have an even more borderless design.

More Click accessories

We are under development on a number of Click Connector accessories. The first available should be the charging dock. We are also actively developing a high end audio accessory to support a 3.5mm jack. We are continuing to look at supporting ideas, like cameras. –Joe

We are planning on having the dock out shortly. Our final prototype build is this month and we will have it available for purchase after we run through reliability testing –Joe

Why the Essential Phone has a chin

The chin on our display is driven by two components: the touch IC drivers and the LEDs for the LCD backlight. We would love to ship a truly borderless display and are working on next-gen products that get us every closer to a seamless device flooded with pixels. – Dave


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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com