Andy Rubin fans speculation about a new Essential Phone, again

Remember Essential Products Inc. and its PH-1, better known as the Essential Phone? The brainchild of Android co-founder Andy Rubin had more knockdowns than Rocky, selling just 88,000 units in its first 6 months and being labelled as essentially irreparable before going out of stock permanently in December.

There were also rumours that Rubin was looking to sell Essential Products Inc. with the PH-1 selling just 150,000 units following US$300 million of investment from companies like Amazon and Foxconn. Rubin has kept a low profile since October following what he labelled a "smear campaign" by Google executives about his personal life, but he has recently returned to Twitter to drop hints about the existence of a follow-up to the PH-1.

In April he tweeted, in response to a question about the prospect of a PH-2 coming to market:

"...We're [Essential Products Inc.] a consumer products company. We engineer cool stuff. Eventually, cool stuff gets launched. You'll see"

If that was not tantalising enough, Rubin has since tweeted "We'll make an announcement. Hang tight" following another plea from a fan for Essential to make another smartphone. It seems that the company is going through the process of bringing something to market, with the PH-2 appearing in carrier logs last month.

So, we are not getting our hopes up quite yet about a sequel to the Essential Phone, but Essential Products Inc. is not dead. Feeling breadcrumbed? So are we.