Project Ara is a cool concept but very vaporware-y. I don't think it will ever come to market as a general release consumer product.<p>I have three distinct reasons for this belief:<p>- Current gen' cellphones are extremely dense internally. There is no empty space, a Project Ara phone needs room for connectors, housing, and similar. Where does this space come from? The battery?<p>- Either the components will be tightly coupled in which case you'll lose the primarily benefit (interchangeable components) or loosely coupled in which case you'll lose performance (as data is transitioned in and out of generic interfaces).<p>- The connectors can never be "good enough." With the phone heating and cooling (environmentally or from internal sources) and the phone getting knocked around/bent/etc you'll see components disconnect from one another and the thing crash, a lot.<p>The Project Ara project might generate some cool concepts which they can go forward with, a lot of cool ideas come from other failed ideas. But as a whole concept where you can slide in and out components and it somehow doesn't increase the size, weight, or decrease reliability or battery life just seems like a pipe dream (baring any massive improvement in battery technology).<p>I genuinely hope they succeed and I'd buy a Project Ara phone if they can engineer something remotely palatable, however the engineering challenges on this one just seem too high to overcome.<p>PS - I didn't even touch on the software issues and some of the chick-egg problems relating to this (e.g. are they going to have a pre-Android OS run who's only job is to reconfigure Android for the hardware changes?).<p>PPS - This negativity has nothing to do with the recent demo crashes. That happens during development, it is normal. I am more concerned about the technological challenges they face and if they're over-come-able at all.
People keep saying this won't work and that modular HW was really only good for games, but there's lots of examples of modularity already in consumer space:<p>1) Many mobile phones are already modular to an extent. Replaceable batteries, replaceable SD cards, replaceable SIM cards. Then there's an entire ecosystem of add-on cases for phones. Sony is shipping add-on camera lens even.<p>Ara is just proposing to make some additional things "add-on", like swapping the camera module. If they only made battery and camera the swappable modules alone, it would be a big win, and plenty of people would choose different camera modules.<p>2) Look at the prosumer camera market, both DSLR and new mirror-less models. A significant population of people desire interchangeable lens. A phone with interchangeable camera module could have all kinds of possibilities.<p>At a certain point, phones will be so powerful and capable that losing 15% of size/weight efficiency to achieve flexibility, especially as devices become commoditized will be a tradeoff worth making.
This is cool technology, but I wonder if it's solving any problems for the consumer?<p>If I cracked my phone's screen, it would be great getting to replace it without having to pay for an entirely new phone. I suppose it might be nice to upgrade the camera, if a nicer camera becomes available. I'm not sure what else. The author claims a precedent for modular technology, and mentions computers, cars, and airplanes. But if anything, computers and cars now seem more integrated and more difficult for owners to modify. I've never tried swapping out parts on a plane.<p>Also, I wonder how Android might support this. It's difficult enough maintaining compatibility among the set of Android phones; increasing the number of possible hardware configurations by orders of magnitude by will probably require some major changes at the OS level.<p>Anyway, I'm sounding negative. But I do think this is cool. Like DARPA programs, it could have a positive long-term impact in both intended and unexpected ways.
Why is everyone so negative on here? This is totally kickass, and could create a physical marketplace along the same lines of what we currently know as an "app store".<p>What's so "this is impossible" about this idea? We live in the 21st century, and we're trying to do things like send people to Mars and cure cancer. We've got cars that run exclusively on electricity, and potentially a propellent-less way of producing thrust -- why is "a modular mobile device" (it doesn't even have to accept phone calls, does it) beyond the realm of possibility?<p>Just seems <i>super</i> negative, for absolutely no reason.
This is a solution desperately searching for a problem. Exactly what Steve Jobs warned against in developing technology.<p>I personally can't care less about modularity in a phone. Would rather have a 1mm thinner phone over any sort of modularity. Almost all modules can be added wirelessly, unless they are latency-sensitive or very high bandwidth.<p>Additionally, due to economies of scale, it may make sense to integrate a module that's extremely useful to only a half of the population in every device manufactured and that may still be a net win economically.
Ara is doomed to failure. Normal phones are designed with one concept in mind, an overall integrated product. In the case of Ara there are loads of inefficiencies and wasted spaces. A normal phone has one big battery cell and a case that protect it. For Ara if you want to add two battery units they are smaller in total than one big one because of the doubling up of matter needed for structural integrity. There are enough manufacturers in the industry to cater for individual preferences but thinking that one adaptable phone design is the best way to cater for everyone is misguided. People generally don't even upgrade the CPU in their desktop machine, the thought that they are going to do so in their smartphone is idiotic.
I think we already have modular phones in the larger sense. We can attach thousands of peripherals via Bluetooth, the charger, headphone jack or wifi and add one of zillions of third party cases. Our personal data sits in the cloud and/or on our huge PC drives and works seamlessly with many slabs. Apps are portable, many even across ecosystems.
Honestly I can see way more exciting things to do with this other than use it as a phone.<p>Something like a tricorder from Star Trek but with the ability to change and upgrade its components to give it new functions.<p>I think they are selling it in the wrong direction when they call it a phone. It could ultimately be the next natural progression for hackable hardware i.e. Arduino -> RaspberryPi -> The new google thing.
Modular phones (and computers) is a powerful concept that worked really well with hobbyists (and gamers) so far. It seems to be a healthy duopoly with all-in-one computing devices we're seeing lately.
I am really excited about the possibilities here. If they can pull this off (big if) you'd basically end up something like the App Store or Google Play, but it's hardware modules. <i>Drools</i>
As the iPhone gets smaller, its more and more apparent that it ALREADY IS a modular part of a larger computing ecosystem.<p>The Ara project is fundamentally flawed because we don't need to replace parts inside a phone, the phone is a CPU. We need to add parts ON to it. So make the iphone smaller, add a second screen (watch) add some sensors (bluetooth heart rate monitor) and add a few other items which are replaceable and far more useful not hard integrated into the phone anyways.<p>If you want a better camera, just buy one and 'add' it to your phone via bluetooth. Then you can get a camera that is physically and technologically designed to be the best it can be as an appliance.<p>All the things I want to add to my phone or replace, I dont need to be on the BUS of the phone itself -- I just need it to be able to communicate.
If you are interested in working on Project Ara and future projects that incorporate modular Android and hardware networking, check out<p><a href="http://static.leaflabs.com/flyers/ara/LeafLabs_Hiring.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://static.leaflabs.com/flyers/ara/LeafLabs_Hiring.pdf</a>
Interesting concepts, but what I really would like to see is a wearable "thing" with computing power, radios, and a way to use voice fro calls and commands, pairable to different screens. So I could have a 4.5-6" screen as a phone when out, an 8-9" as a tablet at home, an 11" and 23" screen for portable and desktop work. All driven from the same computing unit.<p>The "thing" could be a watch, maybe with an integrated Moto Hint-like earbud for calls. Or a pager-like device to carry on your belt or pocket, etc. Each screen would have its own battery, so the "thing" would need less power.
I like that it is serviceable so that you do not have to
throw away your cell phone because the battery is dead.<p>Fact a lot of old electronic devices including phones
gets illegally exported to African countries and China.
There they are not recycled in an environmental friendly way.<p>Here is the documentary e-wastelandfilm, it will make you think twice before ordering the next great smartphone that soon will be obsolete by a better one.
<a href="http://www.e-wastelandfilm.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.e-wastelandfilm.com/</a><p>Thanks to the Google team for creating Project Ara!
I'm skeptical if many people really want this. Modularity makes much more sense for televisions, but there's still people buying smart TVs, i.e. non-modular TVs.
>Project Ara is like old-fashioned 1980s-era Southern California punk rock music; it is whatever you make it to be.<p>What a narrowcast reference. It made me smile, though.
As the Wired article references, the hope is that this will kickstart a consumer-driven frenzy akin to the PC industry's trajectories.<p>It's a long time in coming, notwithstanding that regulations and FCC compliance seem to be the biggest regulatory obstacles preventing this idea from becoming reality earlier on during the evolution of mobile devices.
I am curious but skeptical. Curious as in, what kind of bus architecture are they running? PCIe with aggressive power management is my guess.<p>Modularity is cool but the infrastructure always adds to the cost. The more I think about it, Ara makes no sense in the phone market. This initiative is more about the tricorder market, if you will.
The concept of a phone running on an internal network is really amazing. I can't believe they got it going fast enough to be watching Colbert on this thing (like the article says).<p>Fairly useless article though. The whole thing just kind of rambles until the one sentence at the end where they describe the working demo.
Fits well with the new Material design. I feel that some of the latest software design trends drift apart from the hardware design trends, where you once had Holo + a black phone or the metallic feel of the OSX interface + a metal macbook
If this project works it could prove a godsend to users with disabilities, even though it can't by definition ever be state of the art (as observed elsewhere in this post modern phones have zero wasted space, and housing/integration will necessarily require more space per feature).<p>A functioning Ara ecosystem would allow the economical creation of devices with smaller production runs. One version may have a much bigger amplifier/speaker unit for hard of hearing users. Another may have a huge screen for those with impaired eyesight. Yet another could be optimized for those with extremely limited motor function à la Stephen Hawking.<p>It will also be a godsend to me, because even though I have giant farmer hands, I detest phones bigger than an iPhone 4S.
correct me if i'm wrong, but one thing i didn't see in the article was the relationship between this project and a start-up from a while back...i think it was called something like phonebloks from a year or two ago?<p>the article led me to think this DARPA guy just brought the idea to phones from the satellite world, but especially given the timelines, i can't help but wonder if there's more to the story than that.
To be fair here, Google struggle with the idea of removable storage in existing devices, so expecting them to make a reasonable leap into reconfigurable ones is a pipe dream.<p>More seriously, this is indicative of a lot of the old pc crowd not having grasped what a SOC actually is (the clue is in the name) or that package on package memory has been a thing for years. Our non PC devices are far more integrated than people seem to realize, and this is why they have the cost, space and battery usage benefits that they do.
this will take the fun out of buying a new phone. upgrade the dirty old one you have that's full of hair and pocket fluff.<p>modularity works great on a desktop PC, but I'm skeptical that it will appeal to many people in the mobile space.<p>ping me in 2 yrs if i'm wrong and i'll eat my words!