Project Ara Concept
This design would not only open up a new world of choice and freedom in the smartphone market, but it would also allow smartphone owners to upgrade their smartphones by buying new hardware blocks to replace old ones instead of replacing the whole phone entirely.
This concept is named Phonebloks, and it was the kind of thing we were all dreaming of when Motorola first announced details of their customizable Moto X. Unfortunately the Moto X didn’t come anywhere near to the customization we’d like to have had, but interestingly, Motorola have now released information on the Project Ara concept that has clearly taken design cues from the modular Phonebloks concept.
Before you accuse the Google-owned company of outright copying, according to Motorola, they have been working on the Project Ara concept for a little over a year, and they have evebn teamed up with the Phonebloks creator to popularize the concept.
Right now this whole idea is just a concept, but it something that could drastically change the smartphone market.
Motorola have said “We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation and substantially compress development timelines.”
In essence, this would allow smartphone owners to do the same thing anybody can do with a computer today.
We would be able to purchase a motherboard-esque base board that would allow us to attach certain components to it such as a display, a processor, WiFi radio, and other important smartphone components.
Motorola will have to go a long way to make the Project Ara concept a reality, but it would definitely be something I’d buy as soon as I could, and I’m sure a lot of smartphone owners would agree.
source: Motorola
