Google held its first developer conference for its Project Ara modular smartphones. Although the company has a prototype ready, it doesn't actually work yet. In spite of this rather obvious obstacle, Google says its Project Ara smartphone will be ready for sale by January 2015.
Google is either very ambitious or totally crazy to have set such an early deadline for its Project Ara smartphones. Currently, the people behind Project Ara are still playing with Lego blocks to try and understand the best way to make the smartphone. The prototype is undoubtedly beautiful, but it is far from functional.
Project Ara's brave leader Paul Eremenko doesn't really see this as too much of a setback, though. During his speech to developers, he admitted that there are still many hurdles to clear, hoops to jump through and problems to solve in terms of Project Ara's development, but he doesn't think making Project Ara compatible with Android is one of them.
"It's true that Android does not support dynamic hardware today," said Eremenko. "The good news is that we're Google."
Eremenko expects to have a basic, so-called "gray phone" ready for sale by January 2015. It will be the most bare-bones version of an Ara smartphone, so it will only cost $50. The gray phone will be fully functional, but users will theoretically be able to add new modules to it as they become available.
"It's called the Gray Phone because it's meant to be drab gray to get people to customize it," he said.
Project Ara already has partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 3D Systems 3D printing company, Phonebloks and others. The 3D printing partnership is of special importance, mainly because all the customizable modules will have to be specially designed and manufactured quickly. The only practical way to do so is with 3D printing.
Eremenko offered up his ambitious timeline to all the developers, so that they would have a crystal clear idea of Google's plans for its modular smartphone. He announced that there will be a second Project Ara developer conference in July, a third in September and then, after some legal clearances, there will be a market-ready Project Ara gray phone by January 2015.
Eremenko said that Project Ara will officially reach completion by April 1, 2015, approximately two years after he first started to work on it. It's enough to make your head spin, but if anyone can do it, Eremenko can.
