Google Modular Phone

Google has been busy. Well, Google is always busy, but in this context, we’re talking about their vision of bringing a Google Modular smart phones into life.

Modular: involving a module as the basis of design or construction.

Umm… Module: each of a set of standardized parts or independent units that can be used to construct a more complex structure.

So. A phone made from a bunch of individual and independent parts. The idea is that you can buy each part separately, depending on what you want and require out of a smartphone instead of buying a whole phone with functionality you might not want or need.

This would also mean you could replace an individual part when it fails or when an update comes out without needing to replace the whole phone. Pros: cheaper and more customizable. You want two camera’s on your smart phone? Buy two camera modules. Use your phone a lot? buy multiple batteries, replace one and charge it while you’re using the other.

Google have just announced their plans to release a Market pilot version of their modular smart phone, called Project Ara in Puerto Rico later this year.

Exciting.

In true Google PR style, they’ll be using a bunch of food trucks running around Puerto Rico to demo the phones later this year. Because, obviously. 

After they’ve understood how customers are going to react to the amount of choice presented to them by a modular phone, and how successful it is, how they can make it more successful, etc, the idea is that the rest of the world will then be introduced to the Google Modular phone too.

See the video for the Google Project Ara modular smartphone here!