Essential will (Essentially) Support all 4 Major U.S. Carriers, will ship with New Virtual Assistant in June

Yesterday was a big day for Andy Rubin and his team over at Essential Products. The company announced a new smartphone called the Essential Phone, a new virtual assistant for the home called Essential Home, and even a new operating system that is being used in Essential Home. We talked about these big announcements as they happened, but as the day progressed we have since learned some additional details about these products.

Although we know the price of the Essential Phone along with its first modular attachment, the company did not initially state when the device would first begin shipping. It has now been revealed that the first Essential Phone orders will begin shipping sometime in June. This was revealed on stage at Recode’s Code Conference. Although we now have an estimated time frame on when to expect orders to ship, an exact date still eludes us. It could be the first week or the last week of June – we’ll just have to wait and see.

When the device was first announced, the company stated the Essential Phone would work on all major United States carriers. This is generally an expensive task to accomplish and even devices such as the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T won’t connect to all the bands available on Sprint or Verizon. However, The Verge reached out to Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T to ask if the phone would work. All but AT&T has responded so far and confirmed the phones will work on their networks, but they can’t guarantee the quality of service.

The last new piece of information that was revealed yesterday was the fact that the Essential Phone will have its own virtual assistant. This virtual assistant will compete with the likes of Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana. The company earlier revealed that they built their own operating system for the Essential Home because they needed a way to connect to all of the smart home protocols that are available today, so it’s not too surprising to see the new phone ship with Essential’s own assistant out of the box.

---

Source: The Verge [1] Source: The Verge [2] Source: The Verge [3]

from xda-developers http://ift.tt/2rkpwmN
via IFTTT