September 2nd, according to Google confirmed to VentureBeat, will temporarily stop the development of Project Ara project, and intends to sell it to third party vendors. The so-called Project Ara, Google is the independent development of modular mobile phones, for technology enthusiasts, presumably already long gone. When I saw this news, it was quite unexpected. Because in the beginning of the CES LG was the first to support modular mobile phone LG G5, May Google also confirmed that it will be released at the end of this year's Project development version of Ara, and for consumers on sale in the first quarter of 2017. In addition, just yesterday, Lenovo is also released in the country to support modular mobile phone second, Moto Z. Google gives this signal, does it mean that the prospects for the development of the module is very slim?

Talking about modular mobile phone, which was originally conceived in 2013 by the Holland designer Dave Hakkens proposed. Modular mobile phone is designed to block the various components of the phone, each other to maintain independence, can be freely removed and replaced on the fuselage. Its benefits are to reduce the cost of hardware upgrades and extend the life of the product. The Project Ara project was first established by Motorola in October 2013, when Motorola also belongs to Google. When Motorola sold to Lenovo, Google did not packaged together with the Project Ara project, but opened a dedicated R & D department, and then carry out related business.
There are several important time nodes in the research and development of modular mobile phone:
October 28, 2013: Project Ara project opens.
February 27, 2014: Google plans to release only $50 in the price of a modular phone in 2015, but only the most basic WIFI functionality.
October 29, 2014: the first prototype prototype was born in Google labs.
January 14, 2015: second modular prototype was born to support a variety of modular components, and has a wealth of color options.
May 20, 2016: Google said that the modular phone will be officially on sale next year, and by the end of this year to provide developers with development. At the same time also released a promotional video, video shows that each module supports hot swappable.
September 2, 2016: Project Ara project suspended.
From this time several important nodes, R & D modular mobile phone after 3 years of research results, and frequently bounced, has not yet officially launched the developer version. Visible Project Ara project for Google such a line of technology companies, is still difficult. So what is the reason that Google is willing to take such a high risk to carry out this project? Presumably there are a variety of factors behind the trade-offs of each business decision, the author can not stand in the perspective of policy makers to look at this issue, only to provide personal perspective.

Investigate its fundamental, Project Ara project is open and suspended from the significance of the development of modular mobile phone and its limitations. So we talk about the significance and limitations of modular mobile phone is what?
But before this, the author first need to explain the modular phone advocated by Google and LG, Moto launched a modular phone has a fundamental difference. Because, whether LG G5 or Moto Z have failed to achieve true modularity, which is only in the mobile phone on the hardware implementation of the expansion, but not the processor, memory, camera or other components into a single module to replace or reorganization through simple plug. So they do not solve the original idea of modular mobile phone, which is to reduce the cost of hardware upgrades and extend the life of the product.

From the macro point of view, the emergence of modular mobile phone has two meanings. One is to reduce the environmental pollution of electronic waste. According to NetEase's mobile phone reports, the current market is the end of the recycling of discarded mobile phones are recognized by the national recycling company, in addition to the black folk workshops. Due to the mainland's recycling technology is not developed, the recovery efficiency is low, so most of the recycling companies will be sent to the relevant agencies to deal with e-waste Hongkong. Folk black workshop is a profit by means of chemical extraction of precious metal material in electrical components, will also have a large number of harmful heavy metals, whether these metals buried or reclamation, will cause severe environmental pollution.
When the phone is modular, some of the hardware will not affect the performance of the phone will be placed in the host, such as WIFI, Bluetooth, speakers, headphones, buttons, etc.. When the user feels that the processor performance is insufficient, the memory capacity is insufficient when a module can. Even if the screen is broken, but also their own simple replacement. Such a cell phone looks more like a self DIY can be the main box, so that consumers rarely because the phone is configured backward or damaged parts and replace the phone, reducing the generation of e-waste.

For consumers, the biggest temptation of modular mobile phone is that it can be customized and scalability. For example, when you need to go out, you can first get the memory module, put a larger battery module, so that it can directly improve the phone's endurance. Of course, this is only a small part, because you may be able to temporarily take the camera module for the phone to install a handle to play the game, or install a HIFI module to listen to music. Modular mobile phones to provide users with too many possibilities.
Limitations of modular mobile phones
Modular mobile phone want to achieve rapid popularity, the most important thing is to sell cheap, only provide a lower price threshold, there will be a large number of consumers willing to try this. But the module will need to have integrated on a motherboard part independent package, there would have a higher production costs, to reduce costs as much as possible, will allow the modular mobile phone is very dependent on the 3D printing technology, but this technology has not been popular in too many, perhaps when ordinary the print shop has a 3D printer, modular mobile phone really will appear.

In addition, the expansion module requires the full support of third party vendors, but the premise is that Google must provide a complete standardized hardware platform for all the third party vendors, that is, a host. But this is not easy to achieve, because in order to achieve each module can be used on the phone to ensure the compatibility of hardware and software, otherwise the module can not use light, heavy damage caused by the short circuit host. And this standard is difficult to change once formed, if the third party manufacturers in the production of a module to stop software maintenance, is likely to result in not compatible with Google's latest software, resulting in the use of. Therefore, the future of the aftermarket will be a problem.
If these problems can be resolved in the future, then the ultimate constraints of its development is the homogenization of the problem. Although the user can be different colors and patterns to form a different model, but compared to the current light and beautiful mass of mobile phones, the shape is bound to bring consumers' aesthetic fatigue. Love may be early adopters of geeks bought a few days, must be placed in the cupboard to eat the soil.

Of course, in fact, there are limitations behind the modular phone Google streamlined hardware business, focusing on the core competitiveness of the market strategy. So we can not simply explain the difficulties of technology development to explain why Google abandoned the three year Project Ara project. At the same time, the modular phone may not have no future, a brief pause in the project may allow Google to find a better partner, or from the core value of the new definition of modular phone. Perhaps with the LG G5, Moto Z such a simplified version of the modular phone iteration, technology matures after the end of the day will be the birth of a truly modular phone. And at that time, perhaps Google will thoroughly Apple leather life.