At the first-ever Google Project Ara Developer Conference, we learned that at this moment in time, Ara modular smartphones look very pretty, but they don't exactly work -- yet. The head of Project Ara, Paul Eremenko, led the conference and discussed the potential for customizable smartphones in great detail.
On stage, Eremenko addressed a room crowded with developers along with many more virtual attendees via live stream on YouTube. He showed off a prototype of the Project Ara smartphone that doesn't work, but certainly looks incredible and fascinating.
The goal is to get Project Ara smartphones ready for shipping by next year. In the meantime, Eremenko and his team will continue to work feverishly over the modular smartphone concept alongside developers to make the dream a reality.
"We want to make the smartphone hardware ecosystem more like that of the software ecosystem that underpins Android," said Eremenko during the live stream.
In a separate interview with the Verge, Eremenko detailed the difficulties, challenges and excitement that plague his team every day as they work on Project Ara. Eremenko claims that he is working on "the most custom mass-market product ever created by mankind," and likens the modular smartphone idea to the perfect Chipotle burrito: a unique, personal creation, put together within the confines of a specific production line with all the same ingredients.
Project Ara hopes to offer a wide array of modules with different pieces of hardware and different design themes. All of the pieces will be made with 3D printers, making the modules even more unique, but still precise. Each of Project Ara's components will be attached to the skeleton of the smartphone via electro-permanent magnets that can be controlled using an app on your Ara device.
"It's kind of a cross between a permanent magnet and an electromagnet, in that it has an on state and an off state," Eremenko explained. "It uses an electrical pulse to switch between those two states, but it's a passive component, meaning it consumes no power in both the off state and the on state."
Although Project Ara may sound like a technophile dream that the average person won't want or have a use for, Google maintains that it wants Project Ara smartphones to go to normal customers in any market, not just its high-tech fan club.
"What we don't want to create is the consummate nerd toy that doesn't have a market outside of Silicon Valley," Eremenko said.
In order to widen Project Ara's appeal, Google will have to make it sound practical and simple. The process of designing your personal smartphone will also have to be simple and no nonsense. Those who aren't tech savvy will have to be guided through the process with all their choices explained to them clearly.
Eremenko admits that customers will "have to make a huge number of choices that are quite difficult to make, both aesthetic and functional," and that, "[w]hen presented with choice, if it's not appropriately curated ... or presented to them, they freak out. They tend to get stressed out, they frequently seize up."
Still, he sees Project Ara as the democratization of the smartphone, not only because you can choose your own design, but also because you can remodel your smartphone any time its components get out of date. Eremenko thinks that this is something that will appeal to many customers. He also thinks that the process can be simplified to the point where it's the norm.
"A gray phone could be shrink-wrapped and something you could buy at your local convenience store," said Eremenko. "Your fire up your gray phone, run the Ara configurator and start purchasing modules in the marketplace."
At the close of the keynote live stream at the Project Ara Developer Conference, Eremenko noted that although he doesn't have a working prototype ready today, he hopes to be that much closer to creating one tomorrow, so that Project Ara can meet its self-imposed deadline of one year more.
"I wish I could make a phone call from stage, have my Steve Jobs moment," he said. "But we'll have to save that for a future developer conference."
