Google’s Project Ara Gets Delayed until 2016 for Faulty Magnets

Whoever is in charge of Project Ara’s Twitter account may have learned that the hard way.

In the first few years, we might see Project Ara have some major flaws, unless Google pulls out some big changes to make the modular smartphone robust.

The Ara platform consists of an on-device, packet-switched data network based on the MIPI UniPro protocol stack, a flexible power bus, and an industrial design that mechanically unites the modules with an endoskeleton.

Now the Project Ara team is testing a new method for attaching and detaching modules.

As such, Google has now revealed it will try out other technology for snapping together the components of Project Ara modular smartphones. Instead of buying a complete phone, like an iPhone 6 or a Samsung Galaxy S6, Google wants to let people buy the parts – such as the camera, processor or screen – separately and mix and match them as consumers please.

As of today the team has posted a series of new tweets – but they will disappoint anyone who was waiting on getting their hands on a Project Ara handset this year. We’re sure the team at Ara didn’t somehow overlook this when building the phone. Apart from the strength of the connections, another key challenge is to squeeze the essential components into a very small space, so that users have as much room as possible to add or modify the replaceable parts. But in demonstrations to the press (including me), Google seemed to have a hell of a time getting the magnets working. Now, it sounds like unreliable magnets also gave Project Ara pause. “This is not goodbye Puerto Rico”, one tweet read. But the method wound up being a little less durable than originally thought, with the connectors failing to survive drop tests.