Google Project Ara? User-customizable smartphones, made of modules?

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/project-ara-spiral-2-announced,28401.html

Looks pretty neat!

 

[Crono]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2371453
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2350786

 

[poofyhairguy]

Will revolutionize different handheld equipment industries, like the medical industry or science research.

Will not be the upgradable phone nerds want.

 

[kpkp]

Will revolutionize different handheld equipment industries, like the medical industry or science research.

Will not be the upgradable phone nerds want.

Completely agree. It has the potential to be a pocketable PC with a lots of different peripherals made for a really narrow/specific purpose at lower cost then single purpose devices. This could translate in huge potential in the developing markets where developers could disrupt different markets of single purpose equipment.

The modularization costs are still to big, for ARA to be disruptive for the smartphone market, but it might became a solid player in a not so near future.

 

[Gunbuster]

Completely agree. It has the potential to be a pocketable PC with a lots of different peripherals made for a really narrow/specific purpose at lower cost then single purpose devices. This could translate in huge potential in the developing markets where developers could disrupt different markets of single purpose equipment.

If there was some magic disruptive sauce in "adding" a component to a phone we would have seen it happen already. There are already tons of bluetooth devices and for instance you don't see a warehouse worker loosing their shit and slobbering over Ara because they will have a new way to attach a laser bar-code scanner. Another example is credit card swipers. We don't need Ara. It's just a geek engineers boondoggle to milk google for a ton of cash.

 

[Midwayman]

Interesting concept, but packaging looks fucked up. This is going to make your phone way larger than it needs to be. Only reason I could see doing this is to get some really niche parts. Like a physical keyboard or a camera with a 1" sensor or other things you won't find in a mainstream phone.