Back in 2013, Project Ara was unveiled. For those unfamiliar, Project Ara is essentially a project worked on by Google that aims to bring a modular smartphone to the masses. What do we mean by this? Basically it has modular components that users can swap out as they wish, so if you wanted a better camera module, all you’d have to do is swap out the current one for something better, all the while keeping the rest of the phone’s specs intact.
It’s an interesting idea and we can only imagine the possibilities that lie in store for such modular devices. Now the good news for those who are looking forward to the device being released, you will be pleased to learn that Google has announced that Project Ara has entered into its beta phase, and that Google will be selecting 100 lucky users to beta test the device.
This is from a pool of around 30,000 applicants, so safe to say that whoever has been chosen is really, really lucky. While it is good news that the project has entered in beta, Google has also announced that it will take them another 8 months before the final version is ready for mass consumption. This means that Project Ara could only hit the shelves around March of 2015.
This is slightly later than what Google had originally planned, which was for a release in January 2015, but then again we guess we’d rather Google get it right the first time, as opposed to releasing a shoddy product for the sake of it.
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