Essential may be at work on making an AI-focused alternative smartphone that operates mainly on voice commands, but it'll have to do so with a significantly reduced staff. Essential has confirmed that it is laying off a large portion of its staff, which Bloomberg reports amounts to roughly 30 percent of the 120-person workforce — mainly in the hardware and sales divisions.
Read MoreWhile Essential's first device has a cult following among those who prioritize quick Android updates, it became clear in May that it would never see a follow-up. A report from Bloomberg revealed that the company had canceled a second Essential Phone and put itself up for sale. However, over the past several months, the company has quietly chugged along, continuing to push out lightning-fast security patches. Now, a new report from Bloomberg states that the company is indeed working on a second device — but it's not at all like its first product. According to the publication's tipsters, the handset is an anti-smartphone with a small screen that relies primarily on voice commands.
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When it was first released, Essential's entry into the phone market was a bit of a flop. Reviews for the PH-1 weren't profoundly negative, but the phone's almost $700 price was humorously high considering its features and problems at the time. A bit over a year later, many of its early issues have been fixed or improved, the phone is one of just a handful to be updated to Android 9 Pie, and it's dropped down as cheap as $250 for Amazon Prime Day — though it's closer to $330 now.
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In a move that will surprise few at this point, Essential pushed out the latest Android 9 Pie release with October security patches within minutes of Google. Perhaps more exciting is the fact that with this update, the company is bringing back notch support.
Read MoreEven stock Android isn't perfect. While the lack of a heavy-handed skin is welcome, many users will find shortcomings (whether personal or widely acknowledged by the user base at large), that they'd like to tweak. Those users will be glad to know that the one and likely only Essential Phone, one of the few stock Android devices on the market, is now supported by TWRP.
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Even though a May report suggested that Essential has canned its second-generation phone (an assertion the company didn't fully contradict), the first Essential Phone remains a cult favorite. In large part, that's because the company pushes out Android updates in near tandem with Google — and that was no exception with the September 2018 Android Pie update released today.
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Now that almost every major smartphone has a display with a ratio around 18:9, regular old 16:9 videos aren't looking too hot with their black bars. To combat this, YouTube added a helpful zoom-to-fill feature to its Android app, but that functionality only works on select, more mainstream devices. The Essential Phone is finally getting support for it, months after both its and the feature's release.
Read More![[Deal Alert] Essential Phone in Halo Gray down to $280 ($220 off) on Amazon](https://www.androidpolice.com/wp-content/themes/ap2/ap_resize/ap_resize.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.androidpolice.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2FScreen-Shot-2018-08-19-at-4.01.41-PM.png&w=728)
Aside from its incredible build and lightning-quick updates, I'd argue that the most interesting thing about the Essential Phone is how low its price dropped in such a short time; this once-$700 phone hit an all-time low of just $249.99 on Amazon last month for Prime Day. Today's deal on the Halo Gray Essential Phone can't quite beat that, but at $279.99, it comes close.
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Mere minutes after Google announced the Android 9 Pie name and official launch, Essential has tweeted that its own Pie update is rolling out to the PH-1 right now. Somehow, in spite of the serious financial problems the company is facing, it's still absolutely killing it in terms of updates.
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