Google targeting Project Ara modular phone for January 2015
MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Google's first phone for its ambitious Project Ara modular smartphone plan will be a boring grey, Ara leader Paul Eremenko said at the first Ara developer's conference on Tuesday. And that's by design.
Eremenko told an audience of around 200 people at the Computer History Museum here that the general public won't have to wait long for their first shot at the Project Ara 'grey phone.' It's scheduled to go on sale in January 2015 for around $50.
Project Ara is the code-name for the smartphone project that would allow people to swap out physical components as easily as you can download a new app, one of the big ideas to come out of the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division at Google. ATAP, which the company peeled off from Motorola when it was sold to Lenovo, is led by Regina Dugan, the former director of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
'It's called the Grey Phone because it's meant to be drab grey to get people to customize it,' he said.
Project Ara's not intended to be just another smartphone, he said, but as customizable and as expressive of the user's personality as apps and software.
Between now and January, however, Eremenko and the two other full-time Project Ara team members at Google have a lot of work to do. They collaborate with a broad range of partners, from academic experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon, to business partners such as 3D Systems, a 3D printing company that is building a massive 3D printer so that components can be easily fabricated.
Ara phones will support Android, which poses an interesting dilemma since the Android operating system does not yet support the drivers necessary for it to control modular components.
'It's true that Android does not support dynamic hardware today,' said Eremenko. 'The good news is that we're Google,' he said as the audience laughed. Android drivers will be due in December, one of the last tasks that the Project Ara team will tackle before the public release.
Ara's endoskeleton, the chassis that will hold the modular components together, will last for 'five to six years' said Eremenko. The components will stay attached to the frame via electro-permanent magnets, and they will use the UniPro standard for communication between modules.
The implications of this could be revolutionize phone sales. Instead of having to buy a new phone to get the latest hardware, you may be able to simply buy the new component that you want to replace. The modularity would allow you to replace parts that you don't want with ones that you do.
'We want to be as helpful but as hands-off as possible for the ecosystem,' he said.
In a surprising moment of candor, Eremenko showed the audience several timelines for Ara development.
He explained that he was sharing the project timeline so that 'you can make as well-reasoned, intelligent decisions about your investment in the Ara system as possible.'
Another developer's conference will be held in July, with a third in September. Power bus support is due in May, with most system-level functions expected to arrive in September. After-market support, regulatory certification, and carrier certification is expected in November. The alpha build of the 3D printer is due in August, with a beta to follow in January 2015.
And then Eremenko told the audience that he'll be done with Project Ara on April 1, 2015, two years after he began. This, he said, is a common DARPA practice to ensure that projects have an urgency to them.
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