Google Confirms It’s Pulling The Plug On Project Ara Modular Smartphone Program

by Marco Chiappetta — Saturday, September 03, 2016, 02:14 PM EDT

Google's Project Ara was ambitious from the start. The goal of Project Ara was to produce a modular smartphone platform, that could updated, upgraded, or augmented, by simply snapping new components in place. The concept seemed like a good idea. If your phone's performance was up to snuff, but you wanted a better camera, simply replace the camera module. Or if you wanted better performance, a more powerful SoC module would be an option. On some levels, it would be like updating a PC.

Project Ara had been trudging along for a few years now. Google even cozied up to a handful of hardware partners, and bootable, somewhat functional devices have already been shown. There were grumblings that Project Ara's days were numbered, which we have already reported on, but it seems Google has now confirmed that Project Ara is dead.

Citing two unnamed sources with knowledge of the situation, Reuters is reporting that despite announcing a host of hardware partners only a few months ago in May, Google has shelved the project. According to the report, Google no longer has plans to release a Project Ara-based device itself, but some of its hardware partners may still be interested, and may bring hardware to market in some form, or at least license some of the technology.

Google hasn't publicly commented just yet, however. We expect to have additional details this coming week.

Tags: Modular, smartphone, Google, Project-Ara

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com