As you might have heard, Google has pretty much shelved their plans for a modular smartphone in the form of Project Ara. It is a bit disappointing that the project came to such an abrupt end considering how close Google was to releasing it commercially, and in a recent interview with Gadgets 360, Motorola execs explained why they thought was the reason.It should be noted that Project Ara was formerly under Motorola while the company was still owned by Google before they were sold off to Lenovo, so it’s safe to say that the folks at Motorola probably have an idea at the kind of direction that Google was headed towards and so their opinions definitely have a bit more weight to them.
According to Stephen McDonnell, Senior Manager for the Moto Mods Ecosystem, “They didn’t really think about the consumer at all. Their whole idea was based around technology, what can you do, but not what the customer wants. They wanted to do things like change the specs but that doesn’t really change the consumer experience.”
He adds that while the concept is exciting for developers, maybe for consumers it was less so. He also says that LG’s approach was wrong as users had to basically shut their phone down every time they wanted to swap out part. He says that these are problems that he believes Motorola has solved with the Moto Mods.
“People don’t want to leave the Mods on all the time, only when they’re using them. You’re going to a cricket match, you put on the Hasselblad module for a couple of hours, take a few pictures, and then you take it off again.”
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