Interesting news today coming from Google who has confirmed yesterday’s rumor regarding the modular smartphone project called Project Ara. The rumor going around was that the project was dead, and Google confirmed this today, although it is actually suspended and not so much dead.
Unfortunately, regardless of the wording you want to go with, the meaning is still relatively the same, in that we won’t be seeing a Project Ara phone release anytime in the near future. It is a shame too because the possibilities this project had, even with mobile gaming, were pretty great to think about. Upgradeable modular phones that people can customize? Yes please!
If you’re not familiar with what Project Ara is, basically this would make smartphones a lot more like PCs, in that you can pick certain parts of your smartphone and buy upgrades of that part. So, for example, you could replace your phones stock RAM with more or better RAM, a better CPU, better camera, and so on, all from different manufacturers. As a mobile gamer, this would have been great because we would be able to beef up our devices as we want. It would also allow anyone with a modular phone to do upgrades within their budget.
Right now Google hasn’t mentioned when, or if ever, Project Ara would resume. Hopefully it will because it was a good idea. I do think the way the devices were being field tested and the accessibility of them even at this stage of the game was done wrong, and that probably help lead to this decision. Of course the delays probably didn’t help either. Either way, let us know what you think about this in the comments below.
Website Referenced: Android and Me
