Google To Test Build-It-Yourself Ara Smartphones In Puerto Rico

An anonymous reader writes Google is holding its second Project Ara developer's conference today in Mountain View and is in the process of giving a roadmap on how and when it might get its modular smartphones out into the market. Probably the most notable bit of news we've learned so far is that Google plans to have a market pilot ready to go in the second half of this year. Unfortunately, if you want to give it a shot, you'll need to live in Puerto Rico — the pilot will roll out in that territory in partnership with carriers OpenMobile and Claro. When Project Ara hits Puerto Rico, users should be able to customize their devices using the Ara Marketplace and Ara Configurator apps. Google's ATAP group will also roll out some "food-truck" style stores for consumers to actually check these devices out before they try them out. Google also says that it'll have some 20 to 30 Ara modules available by launch across 10 different categories.

Comments

Re:Drivers

[exomondo]

Well the biggest pain will be the operating system itself, the existing compatibility issues that prevent devices from upgrading to newer versions of Android are only going to get worse once you start adding modules that require newer versions of the OS that existing modules are not compatible with especially when these modules start coming from different vendors.

Re: Could be worse

[BarbaraHudson]

Then why do they always insist on flying the stupid fucking Puerto Rican flag at their houses (and some even get it tattooed on their skin)? If they want to be americans, they should have american pride, not Puerto Rican pride.

I dare you to tell that to all the Texans to their faces.

Prediction: another Google flop

[PapayaSF]

This has all the earmarks of another sounds-cool-at-first Google project that won't amount to much in the end.

Modularity sounds like a good idea, but in practice, in cellphones, I don't think it'll work. In objects of that size every millimeter counts, and modularity takes up quite a bit of space at that scale, because each part needs to be enclosed, securely attach to the others, etc. The trade-offs will mean you'll be able to pick one or two things (e.g. speed, battery life, extra features, etc.) but not all at the same time. And the prices won't be good, because manufacturer(s) will not have economies of scale: it'll be hard to compete with Apple and Samsung making millions and tens of millions of identical units.