Are we about to see another company go neck and neck with the key players in the mobile industry? It's possibly too early to think about that, because while Google's Project Ara phone has been unveiled recently at the Project Ara Developers Conference in Mountain View, Calif., it has not been released yet.
Project Ara, simply put, is a reinvention of the kind of mobile phone we have now. To come up with a smartphone, it aims to put together individual modules or interchangeable components with the use of electro-permanent magnets. It's like creating a mobile phone out of Lego blocks, so to speak, or at least parts a few times bigger than those blocks. The magnets, however loose it may still sound, prevent the phone parts from disintegrating or flying apart when dropped.
Research says Project Ara took its inspiration from the U.S. Department of Defense, which has a different approach to innovation. The smartphone project is part of the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group of Google, which in turn takes its approach on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense. ATAP head Regina Dugan is a previous director of DARPA, while Project Ara head Paul Eremenko is an alumnus.
The Ara phone model, though, initially appears to provide convenience and possibly more savings among smartphone owners. How? Phone owners can have their phone upgraded or repaired without the need to replace the whole unit. It sounds like nothing new, right? Really, it is something new. For instance, this project allows users to change or upgrade the camera in their phones without the need to buy another phone with a higher-megapixel camera. Because the components are individualized, users can just replace the camera component and the rest remains as is -- something we don't see these days.
Market watchers said although Google's new smartphone may have been marketed as a cheap buy, ranging from $50 for low-end units to $500 or more for high-end units, still it won't most likely be as cheap as they said it is.
"Pricing is something that's beyond the scope of a [research-and-development] effort," said Paul Eremenko, head of Project Ara.
Here's the takeaway, though: Because it is modularized or individualized, users can ditch the features they have no use for and save bucks.
Critics, meanwhile, said marketing a modularized or swappable components type of a smartphone in a competitive mobile industry is a tough job -- even for a business as big and established as Google. The idea of it being a very ambitious goal is another thing, though, critics added.
Google plans to first launch a very basic gray model in January 2015, Eremenko said during the developers conference. The smartphone will come only in three sizes, namely mini, medium and large, and a range of colors from monochromatic ones to bold and bright hues.
Regardless, the Project Ara, if it pushes through as planned, is an awesome addition to our array of overly hyped and commercialized smartphones dominated by, well, at least two manufacturers who continue to take each other down.
