Nate! Is this the future of our phones? #ProjectAra
Posted by 89.7 Bay on Friday, January 16, 2015
“What if you could make thoughtful choices about exactly what your phone does, and use it as a creative canvas to tell your own story? Introducing Project Ara.“
The above excerpt is what you’d find on the top of your Google search results once typing in the keywords “Project Ara” but what does all this talk on creativity eventually mean to you? Read on to find out more.
The Market Pilot test for Project Ara is knocking at Puerto Rico’s doors and it won’t be too long (I hope) before these Lego phones see the light of day. Project Ara is all about modules and linking them together and making them more customisable by the end user via APIs. In the second phase of this project aptly dubbed ‘Spiral 2′, the hardware now consists of a board which enables multiple module interfaces to be possible and also multiple bridged & tunneled protocols. The Ara endoskeleton along with connectors and cables are now also in place for a more ‘complete’ looking Lego set.
Besides that, from being only able to connect to Wi-Fi, the sets are now able to support 3G wireless and of course, the developers are also working real hard to push for for that added support of 4G LTE (and 5G in the near future). As far as aesthetics is concerned, the Phone Maker API will allow for customization for the shells and the outlook of these phones.
As mentioned earlier, these phones will be likened to fixing pieces of Lego together which brings us to the end consumers’ main concern – cost. As of now, Google still needs to tinker with the idea of everyone having to wrap their heads around buying individual parts and assembling their own phones.
However, if consumers would to actually assemble their own phones, the only cost that would be borne by them would to be the cost of the components/modules itself. With that being said, prices would technically be lower but how much lower is the question. Also, would consumers actually assemble their own phones? Well, if you would liken your phone to an IKEA furniture, then yes but we all know that the two are very much different.
But at the end of the day, for those who still want to have a life with the least distraction of technology, this project will probably be for the niche group who actually wants the ultimate phone. Maybe feature phones might still be a more viable option compared to these Lego phones? How about gathering some sticks then? I’ll send over some smoke signals.
