Google has suspended work on a modular smartphone
The company Alphabet Inc, which is owned by Google brand, suspended for an indefinite period to work on a smartphone modular Project Ara. This was reported by Reuters, citing two sources close to the company.
It became known only two days after the presentation of the new modular smartphone Lenovo.
Freeze Project Ara looks unexpectedly after as in May 2016 the company introduced the project partners and announced that it plans to release the first modular smart phones this fall.
The reasons for freezing Project Ara
According to Reuters sources, Google is going to bring in a uniform system of their very dissimilar gadgets. To control this process, the company returned to Rick Osterloh (Rick Osterloh), former president of Motorola. Google will not itself produce the modular smartphone, but can continue to work with partners to finalize the Project Ara technology for subsequent implementation of other manufacturers through licensing agreements.
One of the Project Ara presentation reels
Bob O’Donnell (Bob O’Donnell), head of the consulting company TECHnalysis Research, commented on the possible reasons for closing project. According to him, interchangeable modules for smartphones were so expensive and inconvenient in manufacture, it could not be offset by the benefits of a modular architecture. O’Donnell believes that “this science experiment has failed, and the company moves on».
Features modular smartphone from Google
The Project Ara developers have integrated basic smartphone technology into the body, thus creating endoskeleton and freeing up space for up to six plug-in modules that can perform different functions. User selectable smartphone can supplement camera, speaker, laser pointer, projector, medical devices, sensor night vision, gaming joystick or other module function. Google repeatedly endured the product release, one of the reasons – modules unwillingness to stick together. Despite the use of electromagnets, smartphone crumbled in the fall.
The history of development of the project
The concept of Project Ara has started to develop a group of Advanced Technology and Projects development (ATAP), which was part of the company Motorola Mobility, Google bought out in 2011. Even before the Motorola acquisition, Google bought several patents relating to the modular architecture, the company Modu. Officially, the project Project Ara was announced in October 2013 we g.
The idea of Project Ara belonged to Paul Eremenko , a native of Ukraine, who worked on the project until his retirement from ATAP in 2015 After this project was headed by an American Regina Dugan (Regina Dugan), but in 2016 she left the ATAP to work at Facebook.
Motorola sold in 2014, Google has left at ATAP team and continued to work on Project Ara. Soon ATAP joined team Android developers, and project a modular smartphone became involved in a separate group. In 2015, the consumer was introduced Spiral 2 prototype that Google planned to release in the Puerto Rico market to test the demand, but the release was canceled. In 2016, the company unveiled another prototype and improved commercial model launch nominated for 2017 g.
The Google project itself involved only three people, most of the development was carried out by the contractor. Production of plug-in modules for the smartphone company is also going to entrust to other manufacturers. Google planned to release only their own exoskeleton, which are mounted modules. Among other contractors working on Project Ara developer of NK Labs in Massachusetts, after the founder of which, Ara Knayana (Ara Knaian) and the project was named.
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