Project Ara team lead Paul Eremenko revealed that alpha build of the Ara smartphone will be out by August of this year followed by the beta build in January 2015.
Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone project, is expected to be available for purchase early next year. The phone is also expected to cost $50 (Rs. 3,000 approx.) and will be available in plain grey colour in order to encourage buyers to customize it. All of this was revealed by Paul Eremenko, the team leader of Project Ara at its first developers conference held on Tuesday at Google’s Mountain View campus.
Project Ara deals with the development of a “modular” smartphone- a smartphone that a user can upgrade with individual components and parts instead of spending money on an entirely new phone. These components will be of the miniaturised variety and will also rely on 3D printing. Eremenko revealed that the chassis or frame of the Ara smartphone will last around five to six years and will hold all the various components in place with the help of electro-permanent magnets. The components will communicate with each other using the UniPro standard, a high speed interface platform developed for use in mobiles.
.jpg)
Eremenko also weighed in on the fact that even though Project Ara supports Android, Android, as yet, does not support the drivers required for modular hardware. He said that because Google owned the project, that problem should be solved soon.
Eremenko also revealed the expected timeline for Project Ara that includes two more developer conferences in July and September of this year respectively. The alpha build of Project Ara is expected in August of this year and the beta build in January 2015, which will be made available for purchase.