The Essential team gathered for another AMA over at reddit today, even as news was breaking surrounding the company’s founder, Andy Rubin. Rubin’s reported leave of absence didn’t stop the team from fielding questions about future support for the Essential Phone with Rubin’s involvement now up in the air, as well as other concerns related to the phone’s next Oreo update, bug squashing, their 2nd generation phone, etc.
To get things started, they seriously did field a question about Rubin and his leave. A redditor asked if any Essential member could comment on the situation and whether or not they could assure us that the phone/company would continue to see support. Their answer:
We absolutely will be continuing to support the PH-1 device including security patches, more camera features and additional worldwide carrier support throughout the lifecycle of the PH-1 device. We still have plenty of work, continued release milestones on the roadmap, and new features we want to deliver from the great feedback we get in these AMAs. We are looking forward to supporting you guys for a long time.
As expected, that isn’t exactly anyone addressing the Rubin situation, but being a company bigger than a single person, it’s no surprise that they plan to continue to support their first phone “for a long time.”
Alright, with that out of the way, onto the rest of the AMA.
Oreo Beta update coming next week
Since several are asking, we are targeting to release Oreo Beta v.2 to our website next week as an update to the existing Oreo beta build. General fixes in BT performance, improved battery, and general stability improvements. Stay tuned to our socials for official announcement.
What about Android 8.1? Will it get a beta too?
We’ll be rolling out Android 8.1 as soon as we can. It probably won’t make our first Oreo release, but hopefully shortly there after. We’re really committed to keeping your phone as up to date as possible!
Its likely we not do a beta for 8.1 and just go straight to release. For 9.0 we will have to assess how big the deltas are between 8-9 but a Beta for 9.0 is certainly possible.
What about Portrait mode?
Portrait mode coming in a play store drop today along with improved JPEG compression + more bug fixes and stability improvements
On touch latency and screen jitters still being pretty bad.
As we mentioned in the last AMA, screen scrolling jitter issues we are continuing to improve on. You and several others have brought this to our attention and we have realized that we owe our supporters a better solution. We are working with our vendors to this further and committed internal and external resources looking into it. Hoping to have something in the next Beta build to improve on this further. We appreciate your patience while we sort through this.
Is the charging dock ever coming? Can we see it? How much will it cost?
Timing: Charging Dock is on its way. Last build is completed, waiting for regulatory. After that, it will be available on the website. As you know, we want to make sure we any date we give, we will meet.
Pictures: See below.
Cost: Don’t have exact cost, but will be reasonable. It will be on the website shortly. Labeling and regulatory being worked on.
Cost (take 2): Dock should be reasonable in price. Under 100 for sure, but don’t have the exact number here.
What about aptX support in Oreo?
Touching on audio again, will aptx be supported on the Oreo update? It’s not currently supported on the beta, while other codecs are (aac, ldac in particular). I, as well as many others, use audio equipment that supports aptx and would really love it if we can take advantage of it.
Android Auto still very broken in Oreo, what’s up?
We are aware of this issue specifically with newer Honda’s. We have a potential fix in build that we have our field test team going out to validate at dealerships this week.
Seriously, where is Stellar Gray and that ugly Ocean Depths color?
We should have the Stellar Gray before the Ocean. Stellar should be finished before the end of the year, but again, check website for availability
We’ve got confirmation of the 2nd gen phone being worked on! (Plus some repairability stuff, with a subtle jab at iFixit.)
We are focusing on reparability for the next generation phone. The iFixit article was a bit misleading in its approach for repair and oddly were briefed on repair procedures but still tried to go through the back. We will make sure that your phone can be repaired at a reasonable and competitive price if the consumables, like batteries need to be replaced. For instance, our repair plan for customer damaged displays that need to be replaced.
The full AMA can be found right here.
Been really enjoying my PH-1 for the last few weeks. I do notice the screen jitters when I’m looking for it and scrolling slowly, and it’d be nice if it was gone, but it’s not the end of the world. Also using the Google Camera port instead of the stock camera app, which gives me noticeably better pictures. Touch accuracy definitely seems to have improved when I moved to the Oreo Beta, although there are things in Oreo that changed from Nougat that I don’t care for. (OS issue, not a PH-1 issue)
They also said that aptX had no technical hurdles and are just dealing with licensing.
so, $99 for the dock? 😉
Just talk at this point.
Btw, I discovered you can return just the 360 camera and get credit for that from Amazon which brings the price of just the phone to slightly under $300. Talk about a fire sale!
This isn’t the first time they mentioned working on their next generation device in an AMA.
And this sentence tells me they have no idea how to fix those software Jitters:
—-“We are working with our vendors to this further and committed internal and external resources looking into it.”
Yeah, I spotted that too. Can’t say that inspires confidence.
I found the comments just to post about that sentence. What the heck? This sentence gave my wife bad cramps!
There should be some way to fix them through the software, I have seen multiple people saying that on LineageOS the PH-1 is butter smooth.
I’m sure there is. The Essential team is just not good enough to figure it out.
Dear Essential,
Please offer a larger variant for your next release. One that stretches to Razer phone form factor proportions. Big frame, big screen.
Okay but so long as they keep a smaller variant too.
Yeah, one of the big draws to the PH-1 for me was the smaller size, otherwise I’d have probably gotten the OP 5t.
Dumpster Fire.
Right on, thank you Droid Life for this summary. I’m much more at ease now since both my wife and I are invested in the device long-term.
I agree! I have it on the way as well as a G S8 as I have been torn between the two. I will need to ship back one of them and with todays news I really thought about sending back the Essential. This article has kept my plan to stick with it over the S8.
I’d send back the S8 only because I prefer the size of the PH-1 and it’s half the price!
What is your security version? About phone – check for updates. No mention in this recap about monthly security, but I am on Sept 5, 2017. They had promised monthly updates for security.
FWIW: I LOVE this phone, only experiencing very minor touch latency, and camera is more than fine for my needs. Just hope for a larger phone option, in v2. That would make it near perfect for me.
They have been very good with monthly updates, I am. On the November security update
Let me guess – you are NOT on Sprint. Sigh, KRACK is in the October patch – If I read the notes correctly.
No i am not, but I believe you should be able to sideload the update from the unlocked version O the sprint version
sideload is blocked to me. subjected to device administrators (AirWatch) and work control. byod policies @ work. 🙁
Both my wife’s and my phone are the unlocked version. One is on Sprint and one is on Cricket. Both show Security patch level: November 5, 2017. So that’s good news!
I wonder why it will not apply to my phone? I have hit the ‘check for update’ button plenty of times, and that is how to get the update according to Essential’s developer pages.
That is strange cuz that’s exactly how I got both of these to update.
You’re wrong about that ocean depth color. How dare you