Something is happening with Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone project.
Remember Project Ara? You might not, given the relative radio silence of the team behind it in recent months, but it’s been in the works for years now.
Way before LG came out with its LG G5 ‘friends’ concept, Google outed a far more ambitious modular smartphone project. With Project Ara, it isn’t just the bottom section of the phone that can be swapped out for a couple of alternatives – it’s pretty much every single component of the phone.
These components slot together like an advanced Lego set. Slot in a better camera, upgrade your memory, fit a sharper display. It’s up to you, not the smartphone manufacturer operating on an arbitrary annual upgrade cycle.
Google has taken its sweet time testing out the Project Ara concept in various territories, with various delays and cancellations along the way.
However, something could be stirring at Google’s top secret labs. As Phandroid points out, the Project Ara website has been redesigned with a new logo. Interestingly, all the information about the project has been removed, and so too have the pages for developers to request software development kits and the like.
Related: 13 products we’re looking forward to in 2016
With Google I/O set for a little under two months time, this could be a signal that Google is set to announce the next phase of the Google Ara project. Maybe even a bold new look or direction.
Whatever, something is clearly happening with Google’s exciting modular smartphone experiment, and that’s enough to rekindle our excitement.
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Are you looking forward to modular smartphones? Let us know in the comments below.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
