Everything you need to know about Project Ara.

You might have come across this topic "Project Ara" recently. It has been all over the news nowadays.

Project Ara is basically a platform to create highly modular smartphones. This platform includes a base or structural frame that holds smartphone modules. Remember the old days when your computer\CPU got slow you would add an extra RAM or upgrade your hard disk to have more space on your computer(people hardly do this with nowadays with laptops.). So Project Ara will bring this old and forgotten feature back and that too on mobile devices.

Project Ara dream concept

Development:

Project Ara was very popular when the concept of modular phones was uploaded on YouTube as Phonebloks in 2013. Google was the first to start development on modular phones. Google had acquired some patents for modular phones way before phonebloks.

Google officially announced this project in October, 2013 as 'Project Ara' and said that they'll be working collaboratively with Phonebloks.  The project was originally headed by the Advanced Technology and Projects team within Motorola Mobility while it was a subsidiary of Google. Later Google sold Motorola to Lenovo but it retained the Advanced Technology and Projects. Project Ara is now separated from Advanced Technology and Projects and is now a separate division of Google.

Structure and Features:

Ara Smartphones are built using modules inserted into metal endoskeletal frames known as "endos". The frame will be the only component in an Ara Smartphone made by Google. The modules will be made by many different companies. 

Ara phones will come in 3 sizes. The first size is 'mini', the base or the frame will be about the size of Nokia 3310. The second size, which is 'medium' will be about the dimensions of Nexus 5 and the third one which is 'large' will be about the dimensions of Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

Modular phones will change the way we buy phones. Sometimes you stumble upon a great smartphone but you don't like its camera and then you see another phone with great camera but not-so-good battery life and like this you never get a phone of your need. Project Ara is the solution to this. Old people that are not much into technology can buy the Ara smartphone and put a module with good battery and nice speaker while photographers can put a module with a great camera.

Is it releasing soon?

A near-working prototype of an Ara smartphone was presented at Google I/O 2014; however, the device froze on the boot screen and failed to boot completely.  The second Project Ara Developers Conference was first hosted within Google's headquarters in Mountain View on January 16, 2015. Then repeated within Google's office in Singapore on January 21, 2015. Spiral 2 was revealed this Dev Con, showing major improvements in module latency and the endoskeletons bus speeds.
And after 3 years of Project Ara's announcement, it is becoming a reality.
It sure has gone through many changes to correct the failures it has first faced. After years of failed demos, public sputters, and worrisome silence, Ara works. About 30 people within ATAP are using Ara as their primary phone.
It is said that the consumer version of Project Ara will be coming in 2017 while the developer kits of Project Ara are shipping later this year.
If everything goes right with Project Ara then be ready because smartphone revolution is coming...