Andy Rubin, the so-called "creator of Android", recently founded a company called Essential, with the role of launching a new premium smartphone with the Android operating system. Essential was supposed to receive an investment of 100 million euros from the Japanese mobile phone operator SoftBank, but the deal fell through.
Although the agreement was almost perfect, it fell through due to the pressure put by the Apple company and SoftBank's fear that a conflict of interest might arise between it and those from Cupertino. SoftBank was supposed to help Essential to launch its new smartphone in Japan, but that would have affected even more the good relationship it has with Apple.
Although the investment would have increased the value of Essential to 1 billion dollars, because of the Apple company, nothing will happen now. Despite this, Essential is working hard to complete its project of a premium smartphone, which will be launched in the spring of this year, or at the latest in the summer, if everything will be completed in time.
Essential is developing products with artificial intelligence, but also a smartphone with a 5.5-inch screen that covers the entire surface of the front panel. Although Essential's plans are very interesting, this is the first time we hear that because of Apple, an agreement regarding such an important investment in a company falls through.
"SoftBank Group Corp. scrapped a planned $100 million investment in a smartphone startup founded by the creator of Google's Android software, partly because of the Japanese investor's increasingly close relationship with Apple Inc., according to people familiar with the matter."
