Google is keeping their cards pretty close to their chest on this one. Although limited information is known regarding the final device, it’s just come to light that parts which can be interchanged will not only be easy to swop out, but they can be done at any time the user desires, even if that means when the device is powered on!
Paul Eremenko, Project Ara team leader, announced at LCU 14 that the Smartphone of the future would be extremely easy to modify. In fact, the whole point of Project Ara is to make them more accessible. In effect, Google wants to do to hardware what apps have done to software. This should be great news for the consumer, as it should mean more affordable hardware, which can be added progressively to the Ara device.
Take this as an example of the functionality of the device; if you want to change the storage on your Ara when it’s capacity is full, you can just swap out the memory while the device is on! Great news eh? Because the device will be the same no matter where you go, it could even mean swapping out your camera for a different one for different types of photography you wan to shoot. Also, you can even change out the battery thanks to a reserve unit. The only components of the phone which cannot be changed are the screen and the CPU, these will not “hot-swappable”.
