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

Drivers

[NotInHere]

Does anyone know whether the drivers for all those wonderful devices will be open source? Will they have open APIs at least, or will I have to install the app of the vendor instead, where some "extra features" cost money? Will I give every device connected to my smartphone basically root access, or access to a system bus which can be used to read and write arbitrary data to RAM?

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:I want to make and receive phone calls.

[AK Marc]

The dumb phones are still available. Do you go picket every new car release, complaining that walking is fast enough for you? If not, then why do you bother to come here to complain about this?

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.

Re:Prediction: another Google flop

[tlhIngan]

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.

A lot of people think phones are already too thin. I had to buy a case for mine just to thicken it up so I wouldn't drop it as easily. I dropped my previous phone 3 times in 2 years. I dropped my new one 3 times in 2 weeks before I got the case.

  I think it'll flop, but for a different reason. 4-5 years ago it would've been a huge success. Back then, the advances were coming in quickly and steadily. 2G, 3G, 4G. Single core, dual core, quad core. 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB. 800x480, 1024x600, 1280x720, 1920x1080, 2560x1440. Today, not so much. Smartphones are pretty close to the point where you can buy one and use it until it breaks. A lot people I know who aren't obsessed with having the latest and greatest have the Galaxy S3 (released 2.7 years ago) and have zero reason to upgrade. It does everything they need, and could potentially need from a phone for the foreseeable future.

People don't really care for modularity.

Judge by an example of modularity - the desktop PC. It was the ultimate - you could swap anything in and anything out, drivers are basically a non-issue with them either built in or auto-downloaded, etc.

And yet, people went for smaller and more integrated... laptops. Desktop sales used to dominate PC sales until a decade ago when laptops outsold desktops and have continued to do so since.

And these were desktops in all shapes and sizes - from small and tiny to huge hulking monsters with plenty of space for a dozen hard drives if you desired.

Of course, you can still buy desktop PCs these days, as they're the go-to form factor if you want ultimate performance (with a cost to match - laptops have gotten pretty low in the pricing tier and decent desktop PCs are pricier now).

The idea of a "PC like cellphone" will cater to a niche. The question becomes whether that niche is big enough to sustain a market and whether or not the driver model can tolerate crappy code. (Most of Windows' issues stem from the fact that hardware manufacturers write crappy code - the goal is to sell hardware, so if you can cut corners on a driver because that's a huge expense, that's more profit to you). it's why Linux gets good marks on that department - those who can write kernel code are often in charge of writing drivers, and they're more interested in getting their hardware working properly and well over trying to chuck something out the door quick.