11 ms·

The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

101 points by beansbeans 10y ago

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Ara was one of the most exciting things about Motorola, and I really wish Google had at least done us the favor of letting Lenovo have ATAP along with the rest of the company, where it might've had a chance. > _“To us, it just felt like we had just kinda hit molasses. And I think, to Google, it felt like they were being uncomfortably sped up,” the source said. Google constantly gets a lot of credit for "innovation", but this is a story I am seeing over and over. Skybox, also bought by Google, said much the same in an article yesterday: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/alphabet-said-in-talks-to-sell-skybox-satellite-business https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/alphabet-... > Skybox’s momentum seemed to slow following Google’s acquisition, while Planet Labs has continued to raise money and send many satellites into space. And from Boston Dynamics: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/17/google-could-be-selling-boston-dynamics-because-even-google-thinks-these-robots-are-terrifying/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/17/google-could-be-selling-bo... > In December 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics and a few other robotics startups. The idea was to build a robotics engineering team inside Google and make them work with Boston Dynamics on robotics projects. Since then, not much happened. As another point, NEST was regularly making large strides and releasing new products, but that effectively ended with their Google acquisition. They rebranded Dropcam after buying them, and that was it, there's been nothing new. Even for acquisitions Google claims to want to develop, it seems to be a graveyard for tech's hopes and dreams.
- euyyn 10y ago
  > letting Lenovo have ATAP along with the rest of the company, where it might've had a chance. Who says Lenovo wanted ATAP, or would have given it a chance? And Google bought Motorola almost 5 years ago. If you don't call that a chance, I don't know what is.
  - pitaj 10y ago
    Well the Moto Z is a thing.
  - mst 10y ago
    I think the point is that if you believe both (a) it had zero chance at google (b) it might have had non-zero chance at Lenovo - then it would've been preferable for it to go to Lenovo, since a possibility of >0 is still better than a flat 0. Personally, I'm reasonably sure the chances of Ara succeeding were infinitesimal anywhere, but I think your "who says" isn't a counterargument to ocdtrekkie's point.
    - euyyn 10y ago
      The point is clear; I'm questioning the assumption. "Who says (b)", is what I'm asking.
- javajosh 10y ago
  I'd speculate there is a combination analysis-paralysis within Google ('we have this thing, what do we allow it to do that doesn't hurt us') and team contentment ('well, our company doesn't have to make money from customers anymore, yay!')
- petra 10y ago
  Maybe that's why they are so focused about partnering in their Google-X projects and not doing stuff alone.
- guest 10y ago
  "Google is not what it seems." The NSA and the plutocratic informal interest group best known is probably the best bet. Ruling the narrative and how people behave and what questions they ask is in focus. The end game isn't simply to predict opinion as weather but to stear it (as it has always been for dictators and those who do not believe in democracy).
grizzles 10y ago
Google mgmt fake releases and then subsequently cancels unlaunched products all the time. They do it to assess market viability and also to stymie competitors. Ara is notable because of the breadth of the project, but it was really just about protecting the android cash cow's flank. The strategy has worked pretty well. Android was released as open source almost 10 years ago, and you still can't run it on any semi open hardware, like you could with eg. Linux on a PC. To this day, it still boggles my mind that Intel won't sell an open handset.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  Maybe Intel and Samsung could finally do something with the Tizen Association?
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    I feel like Samsung has been hedging their bets on this for a long time. Before Google struck a patent deal with them that also included some other capitulations, Samsung was heavily working on replacing Google apps with their own products and services. And they recently bought the Viv assistant, from the original creators of Siri. Given Google's terms likely forbid OEMs from setting a default voice assistant other than Google's, it seems like an almost nonsensical purchase unless they want to be ready to leave Google.
    - guyzero 10y ago
      An android phone with Alexa was announced at CES. http://bgr.com/2017/01/05/huawei-mate-9-release-date-alexa-phone/ http://bgr.com/2017/01/05/huawei-mate-9-release-date-alexa-p...
      - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
        I did see that, but I suspect that either it won't be the default voice app on the device, or Google will threaten them into changing it before release. Or maybe they'll do some crazy double hotword thing where you can ask for Google or Alexa? I don't know, but Google's contracts are pretty ironclad if you want Play Store access on your phone. As early as 2014 it was said that Google's confidental contracts with OEMs controlled the default voice assistant setup: https://www.theinformation.com/Google-s-Confidential-Android-Contracts-Show-Rising-Requirements https://www.theinformation.com/Google-s-Confidential-Android... A lot of things are shown off at CES that never actually happen. @flukus's comment below, since I hit my rate limit: Google is already under antitrust investigation for their practices with OEM contracts with Android in multiple jurisdictions internationally. The European Union case is ongoing. Russia has already ruled against Google and instructed them to release OEMs from the illegal provisions... so far Google has refused to comply with Russian law.
onli 10y ago
I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just add more, if he needs a new processor he would just replace the current, if he needs a higher resolution display the old just would get replaced. Of course that is not easy, of course in the beginning a tailor-made smartphone would be slicker, faster. But then you support it some time and you get loyal users upgrading their device instead of even considering something else. I know there are limits to upgradeability, just as a PC reaches the moment where all that remains from its old incarnation is the case. But still, enabling upgrades and thus removing consumers from the market would be a huge hit to all other smartphone vendors, probably spawning a more targeted parts industry. And no: The current module system from LG or what Ara was presenting in the end is not it. Adding a new photo lense interests no one. You need to be able to switch out the core components to make an impact. The Fairphone 2 comes close, but I don't think you can drive real core upgrades without controlling the OS, and thus it ends up with a core module. We'll see. If they manage to add things like replacing the display with a better display, the core module with a more powerful one, that might already be good enough.
- jpm_sd 10y ago
  Nope. Sorry. Physics. Compared to a lightweight device that fits in your pocket, an IBM PC is huge. Colossal. All the space you could possibly need for modular interconnects, sheet metal sub-chassis-es, proper fasteners, etc. etc. A comparably-modular mobile phone cannot be anything but thick and heavy, unless you would prefer fragile and unusable.
  - onli 10y ago
    I don't believe that for a minute. While it won't be easy – otherwise Ara would have succeeded already – I don't think we are anywhere near a problem that physics make really infeasible. Where is the physical argument? Where is the formula that says that blocks that size can't stick? You "just" need well defined small intercommunication system for small blocks with one good system that holds it together. If that were impossible, Ara would have not come as far as it did, and the Fairphone 2 would not be as modular as it is.
aceperry 10y ago
I would've liked to see Project Ara continue. I never thought the phone idea was good because the economics didn't seem to make sense. There's no way that a low volume product using expensive parts can compete with the handset makers and carriers on price and finished quality. The real strength was in the maker space where you can put together components to custom build your own product. Just like a higher level arduino system, you can easily get a lot of functionality without the pain of low level development. There is a lot of potential, especially from the healthcare field, which had a lot of interest in this project. I know of a few people who were working on projects around project Ara before they pulled the plug on it.
batbkw 10y ago
:-(
contingencies 10y ago
Given that swappable storage already exists in a standardized form factor at a tiny size, what are the truly functional components of a phone that should be swappable? All I can see are screen, memory, CPU, baseband mobile communications, wifi, bluetooth, camera, local sensors, battery. Observations: trying to put memory and CPU across disparate modules on the same generic block-linking bus used by the other components smells like a recipe for pain. Sensors and wireless connectivity are stupid-cheap and therefore largely not module-worthy, they would probably be on the same unit as the mobile comm's baseband. Conclusion: Maybe retry with [cpu/memory]+[camera]+[comms]+[screen]+[battery] Gotchas: Hardware profits lower, so where's the commercial carrot? I suppose a cabal of governments (EU?) or a single big one (China) could regulate heavily against throwaway devices entering their markets, which could provide enough push, though it would be hard for China to regulate. Software experience polish would suffer. Overall bulk would likely suffer, though we've already reached too-tiny-to-hold-is-the-problem so that's less of an issue.
general_ai 10y ago
Even at Google most people knew this project was stillborn. It's a combination of two factors: no one but a few geeks actually has any need for this, and the overwhelming majority of profits in the industry is taken by a company that builds the opposite of Ara, further underscoring the former point. It terms of flushing money down the drain it ranks way up there with Google Glass and Project Loon.
- Traubenfuchs 10y ago
  I am still baffled that countless intelligent people deluded themselves into thinking this could have worked well on a big scale for the longest time.
  - general_ai 10y ago
    As Alexander Pushkin(a famous Russian poet) wrote in one of his poems: "Oh it is not hard to fool me, for I am eager to be fooled."
idreyn 10y ago
From a layman's perspective, it sounds like they shot themselves in the foot somewhat by taking modularity to a logical extreme — building a highly generalizable bus system that would support connections of any kind of component on any part of the device. I wonder what gains would come from relaxing that requirement, so a certain sector is always reserved for a camera, another for a battery, etc, one for each component that everyone is obviously going to want on their phone but might be upgradable over time. The idea of being able to attach a Geiger counter to your phone is intriguing but that was always going to be a niche within a niche.
- flukus 10y ago
  That's what these guys are trying to do: https://shop.fairphone.com/en/ https://shop.fairphone.com/en/
digi_owl 10y ago
Every time they made a public presentation of it, further away from the IBM PC for your pocket it moved. First it was that that Google was to be the only producer of endoskeletons, and that it would house custom chips. OK, that's on par with the IBM BIOS. Then they started talking about how modules would only be available via their Play store, and tied to your Google account. They were not even sure if they would allow the resale of used modules. Then they started talking about moving the mobile radio into the endo. Then, right before official cancellation, they talked about a complete rethink where just a few small parts could be replaced.
proee 10y ago
Way back when the dinosaurs roamed, and we had "PDAs", Palm tried to do this with their Visor "Springboards." These module would slide in the back and give you all sorts of awesomeness like "more memory, temperature loggers, cameras, printers, etc." However, this expansion module came at a cost. The product itself had to be twice as thick as the competition, and the marketplace was moving so fast that it became outdated in just a few years. Cool idea though - we actually made our own springboard module for our senior design project as a EE. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/511D5DYQQAL.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/511D5DYQQAL...
EdSharkey 10y ago
HEY GOOGLERS! Please make a Google Pixel phone with a replaceable battery and I'll go buy one! I'm stuck on a 4 year old Samsung Nexus until you do (or until I can no longer get replacement batteries for it.) I'd really prefer to get a phone with VR specs like the Pixel but not being able to replace the battery makes it not worth the spend for me. Thanks in advance!
hpagey 10y ago
It's interesting that the original Project Ara Moduino prototype became the Moto Z. Confirms that the Moto Z was developed under Google, because Lenovo sure as fuck wasn't throwing money at Motorola's R&D. The split might've actually been good, for modular phones at least. The Z might've been scrapped alongside Ara, but alternatively there might be a Google Moto PiXel right now with Google Mods. All the things that could have been...

101 points by beansbeans 10y ago

Ara was one of the most exciting things about Motorola, and I really wish Google had at least done us the favor of letting Lenovo have ATAP along with the rest of the company, where it might've had a chance. > _“To us, it just felt like we had just kinda hit molasses. And I think, to Google, it felt like they were being uncomfortably sped up,” the source said. Google constantly gets a lot of credit for "innovation", but this is a story I am seeing over and over. Skybox, also bought by Google, said much the same in an article yesterday: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/alphabet-said-in-talks-to-sell-skybox-satellite-business https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/alphabet-... > Skybox’s momentum seemed to slow following Google’s acquisition, while Planet Labs has continued to raise money and send many satellites into space. And from Boston Dynamics: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/17/google-could-be-selling-boston-dynamics-because-even-google-thinks-these-robots-are-terrifying/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/17/google-could-be-selling-bo... > In December 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics and a few other robotics startups. The idea was to build a robotics engineering team inside Google and make them work with Boston Dynamics on robotics projects. Since then, not much happened. As another point, NEST was regularly making large strides and releasing new products, but that effectively ended with their Google acquisition. They rebranded Dropcam after buying them, and that was it, there's been nothing new. Even for acquisitions Google claims to want to develop, it seems to be a graveyard for tech's hopes and dreams.

euyyn 10y ago
> letting Lenovo have ATAP along with the rest of the company, where it might've had a chance. Who says Lenovo wanted ATAP, or would have given it a chance? And Google bought Motorola almost 5 years ago. If you don't call that a chance, I don't know what is.
- pitaj 10y ago
  Well the Moto Z is a thing.
- mst 10y ago
  I think the point is that if you believe both (a) it had zero chance at google (b) it might have had non-zero chance at Lenovo - then it would've been preferable for it to go to Lenovo, since a possibility of >0 is still better than a flat 0. Personally, I'm reasonably sure the chances of Ara succeeding were infinitesimal anywhere, but I think your "who says" isn't a counterargument to ocdtrekkie's point.
  - euyyn 10y ago
    The point is clear; I'm questioning the assumption. "Who says (b)", is what I'm asking.
javajosh 10y ago
I'd speculate there is a combination analysis-paralysis within Google ('we have this thing, what do we allow it to do that doesn't hurt us') and team contentment ('well, our company doesn't have to make money from customers anymore, yay!')
petra 10y ago
Maybe that's why they are so focused about partnering in their Google-X projects and not doing stuff alone.
guest 10y ago
"Google is not what it seems." The NSA and the plutocratic informal interest group best known is probably the best bet. Ruling the narrative and how people behave and what questions they ask is in focus. The end game isn't simply to predict opinion as weather but to stear it (as it has always been for dictators and those who do not believe in democracy).

grizzles 10y ago

Google mgmt fake releases and then subsequently cancels unlaunched products all the time. They do it to assess market viability and also to stymie competitors. Ara is notable because of the breadth of the project, but it was really just about protecting the android cash cow's flank. The strategy has worked pretty well. Android was released as open source almost 10 years ago, and you still can't run it on any semi open hardware, like you could with eg. Linux on a PC. To this day, it still boggles my mind that Intel won't sell an open handset.

Apocryphon 10y ago
Maybe Intel and Samsung could finally do something with the Tizen Association?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  I feel like Samsung has been hedging their bets on this for a long time. Before Google struck a patent deal with them that also included some other capitulations, Samsung was heavily working on replacing Google apps with their own products and services. And they recently bought the Viv assistant, from the original creators of Siri. Given Google's terms likely forbid OEMs from setting a default voice assistant other than Google's, it seems like an almost nonsensical purchase unless they want to be ready to leave Google.
  - guyzero 10y ago
    An android phone with Alexa was announced at CES. http://bgr.com/2017/01/05/huawei-mate-9-release-date-alexa-phone/ http://bgr.com/2017/01/05/huawei-mate-9-release-date-alexa-p...
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      I did see that, but I suspect that either it won't be the default voice app on the device, or Google will threaten them into changing it before release. Or maybe they'll do some crazy double hotword thing where you can ask for Google or Alexa? I don't know, but Google's contracts are pretty ironclad if you want Play Store access on your phone. As early as 2014 it was said that Google's confidental contracts with OEMs controlled the default voice assistant setup: https://www.theinformation.com/Google-s-Confidential-Android-Contracts-Show-Rising-Requirements https://www.theinformation.com/Google-s-Confidential-Android... A lot of things are shown off at CES that never actually happen. @flukus's comment below, since I hit my rate limit: Google is already under antitrust investigation for their practices with OEM contracts with Android in multiple jurisdictions internationally. The European Union case is ongoing. Russia has already ruled against Google and instructed them to release OEMs from the illegal provisions... so far Google has refused to comply with Russian law.

onli 10y ago

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just add more, if he needs a new processor he would just replace the current, if he needs a higher resolution display the old just would get replaced. Of course that is not easy, of course in the beginning a tailor-made smartphone would be slicker, faster. But then you support it some time and you get loyal users upgrading their device instead of even considering something else. I know there are limits to upgradeability, just as a PC reaches the moment where all that remains from its old incarnation is the case. But still, enabling upgrades and thus removing consumers from the market would be a huge hit to all other smartphone vendors, probably spawning a more targeted parts industry. And no: The current module system from LG or what Ara was presenting in the end is not it. Adding a new photo lense interests no one. You need to be able to switch out the core components to make an impact. The Fairphone 2 comes close, but I don't think you can drive real core upgrades without controlling the OS, and thus it ends up with a core module. We'll see. If they manage to add things like replacing the display with a better display, the core module with a more powerful one, that might already be good enough.

jpm_sd 10y ago
Nope. Sorry. Physics. Compared to a lightweight device that fits in your pocket, an IBM PC is huge. Colossal. All the space you could possibly need for modular interconnects, sheet metal sub-chassis-es, proper fasteners, etc. etc. A comparably-modular mobile phone cannot be anything but thick and heavy, unless you would prefer fragile and unusable.
- onli 10y ago
  I don't believe that for a minute. While it won't be easy – otherwise Ara would have succeeded already – I don't think we are anywhere near a problem that physics make really infeasible. Where is the physical argument? Where is the formula that says that blocks that size can't stick? You "just" need well defined small intercommunication system for small blocks with one good system that holds it together. If that were impossible, Ara would have not come as far as it did, and the Fairphone 2 would not be as modular as it is.

aceperry 10y ago

I would've liked to see Project Ara continue. I never thought the phone idea was good because the economics didn't seem to make sense. There's no way that a low volume product using expensive parts can compete with the handset makers and carriers on price and finished quality. The real strength was in the maker space where you can put together components to custom build your own product. Just like a higher level arduino system, you can easily get a lot of functionality without the pain of low level development. There is a lot of potential, especially from the healthcare field, which had a lot of interest in this project. I know of a few people who were working on projects around project Ara before they pulled the plug on it.

batbkw 10y ago

:-(

contingencies 10y ago

Given that swappable storage already exists in a standardized form factor at a tiny size, what are the truly functional components of a phone that should be swappable? All I can see are screen, memory, CPU, baseband mobile communications, wifi, bluetooth, camera, local sensors, battery. Observations: trying to put memory and CPU across disparate modules on the same generic block-linking bus used by the other components smells like a recipe for pain. Sensors and wireless connectivity are stupid-cheap and therefore largely not module-worthy, they would probably be on the same unit as the mobile comm's baseband. Conclusion: Maybe retry with [cpu/memory]+[camera]+[comms]+[screen]+[battery] Gotchas: Hardware profits lower, so where's the commercial carrot? I suppose a cabal of governments (EU?) or a single big one (China) could regulate heavily against throwaway devices entering their markets, which could provide enough push, though it would be hard for China to regulate. Software experience polish would suffer. Overall bulk would likely suffer, though we've already reached too-tiny-to-hold-is-the-problem so that's less of an issue.

general_ai 10y ago

Even at Google most people knew this project was stillborn. It's a combination of two factors: no one but a few geeks actually has any need for this, and the overwhelming majority of profits in the industry is taken by a company that builds the opposite of Ara, further underscoring the former point. It terms of flushing money down the drain it ranks way up there with Google Glass and Project Loon.

Traubenfuchs 10y ago
I am still baffled that countless intelligent people deluded themselves into thinking this could have worked well on a big scale for the longest time.
- general_ai 10y ago
  As Alexander Pushkin(a famous Russian poet) wrote in one of his poems: "Oh it is not hard to fool me, for I am eager to be fooled."

idreyn 10y ago

From a layman's perspective, it sounds like they shot themselves in the foot somewhat by taking modularity to a logical extreme — building a highly generalizable bus system that would support connections of any kind of component on any part of the device. I wonder what gains would come from relaxing that requirement, so a certain sector is always reserved for a camera, another for a battery, etc, one for each component that everyone is obviously going to want on their phone but might be upgradable over time. The idea of being able to attach a Geiger counter to your phone is intriguing but that was always going to be a niche within a niche.

flukus 10y ago
That's what these guys are trying to do: https://shop.fairphone.com/en/ https://shop.fairphone.com/en/

digi_owl 10y ago

Every time they made a public presentation of it, further away from the IBM PC for your pocket it moved. First it was that that Google was to be the only producer of endoskeletons, and that it would house custom chips. OK, that's on par with the IBM BIOS. Then they started talking about how modules would only be available via their Play store, and tied to your Google account. They were not even sure if they would allow the resale of used modules. Then they started talking about moving the mobile radio into the endo. Then, right before official cancellation, they talked about a complete rethink where just a few small parts could be replaced.

proee 10y ago

Way back when the dinosaurs roamed, and we had "PDAs", Palm tried to do this with their Visor "Springboards." These module would slide in the back and give you all sorts of awesomeness like "more memory, temperature loggers, cameras, printers, etc." However, this expansion module came at a cost. The product itself had to be twice as thick as the competition, and the marketplace was moving so fast that it became outdated in just a few years. Cool idea though - we actually made our own springboard module for our senior design project as a EE. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/511D5DYQQAL.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/511D5DYQQAL...

EdSharkey 10y ago

HEY GOOGLERS! Please make a Google Pixel phone with a replaceable battery and I'll go buy one! I'm stuck on a 4 year old Samsung Nexus until you do (or until I can no longer get replacement batteries for it.) I'd really prefer to get a phone with VR specs like the Pixel but not being able to replace the battery makes it not worth the spend for me. Thanks in advance!

hpagey 10y ago

It's interesting that the original Project Ara Moduino prototype became the Moto Z. Confirms that the Moto Z was developed under Google, because Lenovo sure as fuck wasn't throwing money at Motorola's R&D. The split might've actually been good, for modular phones at least. The Z might've been scrapped alongside Ara, but alternatively there might be a Google Moto PiXel right now with Google Mods. All the things that could have been...