Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) will make its Project Ara modular smartphone available to consumers in January 2015 as reported by 9to5Google. Consumers will be able to assemble and customize their smartphone into different configurations using Moto Maker, the web-based configuration tool from Motorola.
According to the report, developers will be able to get a unit of Project Ara modular smartphone earlier than its official launching next year, but Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has not yet released the exact schedule.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) revealed Project Ara last February. The company’s Advanced Technology Projects (ATAP) team headed by Regina Dugan, former director of the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is supervising the project.
$50 target price for Google smartphone
It had been reported that the search engine giant aims to offer the Project Ara to consumers at a very affordable price. The ATAP team’s target price for the modular smartphone is $50.
In a previous interview with Time magazine, Paul Eremenko, the head of Project Ara explained that their objective is to repeat what Google did with its Andoid operating system or other software to the hardware—to make hardware manufacturing open to numerous developers in contrast with the existing situation wherein smartphone development is handled by a few big name manufacturers.
Expressive smartphone
Eremenko believes that it will take a long time – around five to six years – before consumers decide to purchase another smartphone once they own Project Ara. During the Time interview, he emphasized that his team is not just aiming to create a custom and unique smartphone, but “something that is expressive” to allow people to use their device as a canvas to tell a story. According to him, his team wants Project Ara to become the topic of conversation during the first fifteen minutes of dinner.
Over the past few weeks, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) showed more details regarding the Project Ara modular smartphone. The company is scheduled to host a developer conference for the device this week.
