‘Google’ ‘Project Ara’ A Failure According To Concept Creator

“Project Ara” was meant to be a modular phone concept that the founder of Phonebloks, Dave Hakkens, partnered with “Google” to create. Basically, it’s a phone with every single part being interchangeable and thus allowing users to keep using that phone for as long as they want and they could ideally customize the features as they want. Unfortunately, Hakkens is now saying in a blog post that the latest iteration of the modular phone concept does not even come close to what he originally envisioned and that “Google” has failed to deliver.

In 2014, Phonebloks released a video of what their version of a modular phone looks like and it fitted the bill precisely. Every single part was interchangeable, from the camera to the processor.

This sparked a lot of interest in the smartphone community, particularly for those who find upgrading to a new phone too expensive, too much of a hassle, or just too complicated.

With the new version, the “Project Ara” phone not only became less modular, Hakkens is saying that the tech giant can do so much better. The current version of the phone only has the camera, the speaker, and the scanner as the changeable parts. As a result, the phone is prone to becoming obsolete as other phones will defeat the purpose of what a modular phone is supposed to be.

A Forbes article on the topic also highlights another issue that Hakkens has when it comes to “Google” wherein the tech giant has the final say when it comes to the modules. This makes collaborations a daunting task and for a project that was meant to "create a phone for the entire world," it’s difficult to disagree with Hakkens when he says that the concept has degraded into more of a fun project than a game-changing one.