A Closer Look at Andy Rubin's Essential Phone
Android creator Andy Rubin burst back onto the scene recently with a new company, Essential, and a feature-packed smartphone featuring an border-to-edge display, a 360-degree photographic camera, and an all-in-one magnetic port to which yous can "snap" unlike accessories.
Details have been few and far between on Essential Phone, the visitor'southward new Essential Dwelling device, and Ambient custom operating arrangement, but Rubin provided a peek behind the drapery this week at the Wired Business concern Briefing. Later his keynote, Rubin—who just secured $300 million in funding for his new company—gave reporters, including PCMag, a very brief Essential Phone hands, and shed some light on why he thinks Essential can compete with smartphone and smart home giants.
Ambience OS
While Essential'due south website gives plenty of details and specs on the phone and smart domicile device, there is far less information about Ambient Os. Rubin wouldn't let reporters really get past the lock screen while nosotros handled the phone, only he hopes the custom, open up-source Android operating system will stitch various platforms together—fifty-fifty iOS, if he tin somehow convince Apple to let him.
"Remember about Apple tree. What Apple tree has with HomeKit is a bunch of private consumer electronics companies enabling HomeKit with their products. These devices don't simply speak to HomeKit, they speak to others as well," said Rubin. "Apple is trying to be the screen that drives these things."
Rubin talked virtually using a drag-and-drop programming model (which sounds a bit like low-code app development) in Ambient Bone to brand app cosmos easier and "redefine what a programmer is" with Essential.
"Nosotros need to change who the installer is. Developing for smartphones is too difficult," said Rubin. "It'southward almost like you have to go somewhere like Udacity to be a good iOS or Android programmer.
"The reason we created a new Os is to solve the UI problem and redefine who a developer is," he continued. "In one case you exercise the job of bridging these islands [between different mobile OSes], you rise above these other UIs and go a holistic interface for every product that might exist in your life."
Essential Home
Nosotros also got a expect at (but couldn't take pictures of) the large round LCD discs serving as the screen for the equally-yet unreleased Essential Dwelling. Rubin described the smart abode device as "a big round LCD that underneath it is everything that's in a smartphone."
"It's a new way to leverage the economies of scale of smartphones in different touch screens," said Rubin.
He likewise mentioned that Essential Home will include an array microphone, but wouldn't give whatever other details as to whether that might play into more than advanced calling or video-conversation features in the device.
The Central Is Interoperability
Rubin said interoperability is the differentiator with Essential. He described Essential's development philosophy as an "anti-walled garden" approach with the open-source Android OS as one function of that and the magnetic accessory port as another. Rubin wants Essential's ecosystem to interoperate with every other system out there, and he thinks consumers want that, too.
"We have a squad of engineers—a lot of them—doing the job of other people to make our product work with theirs. Other companies are sitting there in their ecosystems expecting people to come to them and they go to say yes or no," said Rubin. "We're actively going out and connecting with people because that's where consumers want to live."
Rubin added: "When in that location'south this duopoly with two guys owning forty pct of the market, there's a sense of self-approbation that 'okay, I'll simply go to them.' That's the perfect time to start a visitor to disrupt them."
What About Augmented Reality?
When asked about whether augmented reality (AR) capabilities would be baked into the platform as Apple is doing with ARKit, Rubin said that while his Playground incubator has invested in AR companies, he's taking infant steps.
He pointed to Project Tango as the standard for 3D tracking and depth perception in smartphones, but said he's notwithstanding waiting for the "finish product," a mean solar day when you lot might have a head-mounted display and somehow connect it to your smartphone...maybe with a magnetic port like that of Essential.
"What's a developer going to build with AR? So far I've seen interactive media. Games, movies, or game-like movies where you're both a participant and a viewer," said Rubin. "That's too mixed reality for me, and the mixed office hasn't been proven.
"When consumers are set for it, whether it's a motorcycle helmet that overlays data or goggles they'll use for a board game [Rubin is an investor in CastAR], we'll be there. The problems with stuff like Oculus and HTC Vive right now are the price and the setup. They're not ready for primetime."
Don't Call It a Modular Phone
Rubin considers Projection Ara the definition of modular: where you can remove a core component like the processor and replace it. "We're non doing that, which is why I adopt the term 'magnetic accessory,'" he said.
Rubin called Essential a "pro consumer brand" that doesn't ask you to become a new weird dongle every time a new accompaniment comes out. With features like the snap-on 360-degree photographic camera, Rubin said he wants to move the needle toward a format alter in the future, and give consumers a more than active part in driving smartphone innovation.
"Consumers need to tell me whether there'southward enough innovation in this. The 360-caste camera and the magnetic accessory are 2 things," said Rubin. "We're in a saturated smartphone market place where anybody who wants a smartphone has ane, and the consumer doesn't go to feel the innovation anymore. The reason we congenital this magnetic connector is to continuously produce innovation and show it to the consumer in existent time. It's almost like software updates for hardware."
Wireless connectors are also of import to Rubin'south vision. He said Essential is using Wireless USB 3.0 and has transceivers working at speeds of 10 gigabits per second.
"A wireless connector is the holy grail and we're this close to it," said Rubin. "The do good of a wireless connector is that I don't endure from what Moto Mod does, where every accessory has to be in exactly the same location. They've painted themselves into a corner because information technology has to match all these accessories or throw them away and come out with new ones. I tin come out with a telephone that as long every bit it has this magnetic expanse on it, you lot can employ the accessory."
Almost Rob Marvin
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/15999/a-closer-look-at-andy-rubins-essential-phone
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