Remember Andy Rubin’s iPhone killer? It’s dead.

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By Steven M. Peters Updated Published

“We are sold out of Essential Phone on essential.com and won’t be adding any new inventory.” —Essential spokesperson, via 9to5Google.

From Rubin’s Wikipedia entry:

  • Carl Zeiss AG, robotics engineer, 1986–1989.[2]
  • Apple Inc., manufacturing engineer, 1989–1992.[2]
  • General Magic, engineer, 1992–1995. An Apple spin-off where he participated in developing Magic Cap, an operating system and interface for hand-held mobile devices.[2]
  • MSN TV, engineer, 1995–1999. When Magic Cap failed, Rubin joined Artemis Research, founded by Steve Perlman, which became WebTV and was eventually acquired by Microsoft.[2]
  • Danger Inc., co-founder, 1999–2003. Founded with Matt Hershenson and Joe Britt. The firm is most notable for the Danger Hiptop, branded for T-Mobile as the Sidekick, which is a phone with PDA-like abilities. The firm was later acquired by Microsoft in February 2008.[2]
  • Android Inc., co-founder 2003–2005.[2] Android was acquired by Google in 2005.[5]
  • Google, 2005–2014: Senior Vice President in charge of Android for most of his tenure.[2] Since December 2013, managing the robotics division of Google (which includes companies bought by Google, such as Boston Dynamics).[11]
  • Playground Global, 2014– present: Founder. This venture focuses on artificial intelligence and it is creating new generations of hardware.[27]
  • Redpoint Ventures, 2015– present: Partner.
  • Essential Products, 2015– present: Founder and lead. Rubin launched the Essential phone through this company in late June 2017.[28]

My take: There’s a lot of Apple in Android’s DNA.

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