Essential started testing Android 8.0 for its PH-1 smartphone back in November of last year. After nearly 3 months since the release of the first beta, the company recently announced that it will not be releasing Android 8.0 to non-beta users.

Essential is skipping the release of Android 8.0 for Android 8.1 due to instability concerns. The company thinks the stability issues will be addressed in Android 8.1, although it will be delaying the release of Android 8.x for its PH-1 device by a couple of weeks. “Through your testing and feedback, we discovered several stability issues in Oreo 8.0 that we believe will be addressed in Oreo 8.1. So we’ve made the decision to focus our energy on Oreo 8.10 instead of releasing 8.0, which will push the public release of Oreo back a couple weeks,” the firm announced via a tweet.

The delay will still likely be a big deal for many PH-1 owners, as most of the early adopters of Essential’s first Android phone are Android enthusiasts. The stability issues mentioned by Essential are particularly interesting, mainly because of the fact that Essential’s version of Android doesn’t differ too much from a pure Android experience. Either way, if you happen to the PH-1, you can either wait a few more weeks for the public release of the Android Oreo update or get the beta builds here. 

Tagged with Android, Android 8.0, Android 8.1