Google cancels modular smartphone Project Ara

Google's Project Ara shelved in hardware business streamlining. Photograph: Google's Project Ara

Google's ambitious Project Ara modular smartphone concept with interchangable components has been shelved.

Reuters reports that Google canceled the project as part of a broader push to streamline the company's hardware efforts, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which announced a host of partners for Project Ara at its IO developer conference in May and said it would ship a developer edition of the product this autumn.

The company's aim was to create a phone that users could customise on the fly with an extra battery, camera, speakers or other components, and be able to replace broken bits, which runs in the face of an increasingly disposable gadget market.

A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on the matter.

While Google will not be releasing the phone itself, the company could work with partners to bring Project Ara's technology to market, potentially through licensing agreements.

Modular smartphone concepts have generated buzz for years in the tech community for their potential to prolong the lifespan of a device and reduce electronic waste. But they have proved bulky and costly to produce.

Bob O'Donnell, of TECHnalysis Research, said he was unsurprised Google shelved the project: "This was a science experiment that failed, and they are moving on."

Project Ara was one of the flagship efforts of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group it inherited as part of its purchase of Motorola in 2011. The division aims to develop new devices, but it had various stops and starts.

Axing Project Ara is one of the first steps in a campaign to unify Google's various hardware efforts, which range from Chromebook laptops to Nexus phones. Former Motorola president Rick Osterloh rejoined Google earlier this year to oversee the effort. Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo Group in 2014.

The change comes ahead of the launch of the company's latest own-brand smartphones, which will reportedly ditch the Nexus branding Google has used in partnership with various manufacturers since 2010 in favour of the company's Pixel brand.

The Chromebook Pixel and the Google Pixel C were the first products designed in-house at Google, and have signified an effort by the Android maker to cement and differentiate its hardware arm from the various third-party Android device manufacturers including Samsung.

Source: Google cancels modular smartphone Project Ara