Talk:Project Ara

Paid editor disclosure: I am employed by Google. Gruffleupagus (talk)

Current erroneous line:
Project Ara requires FCC approval before any official global release. Google acquired a special permit to test their modular smartphones in Puerto Rico in the summer of 2015.^[1]

Suggested edit:
A market pilot for Project Ara is scheduled for 2015 with a target bill of materials cost of $50-$100 for a basic grey phone.^[2][3]

Suggested sources:
http://recode.net/2014/06/29/meet-project-ara-the-modular-google-phone-of-the-future/
http://www.tested.com/tech/smartphones/460765-tested-explains-how-googles-project-ara-smartphone-works/

I removed all the instances of "Variable" and "Optional" in the infobox. It's a modular smartphone, and listing off all the elements of a smartphone without adding any information is redundant. The infobox format doesn't convey information well for this subject and so explanations of the phone's specifications are best left to the article text. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 22:47, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The sources contains a link to a forum that appears to be unused, or added to satisfy someone's ego, perhaps it should not be in this article at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.129.71.40 (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you referring to the External Links section? The forum link goes to Blokworld, which appears to be a fan blog with only two posts. I deleted that link, along with the link to the "official" Spanish site (another fan site) and the dscouts link (which now redirects to the dscouts home page). Zeldafanjtl (talk) 05:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

As before, I've removing the parts of the infobox that say "Modular," as they don't provide useful information. Furthermore, I've deleting the unsourced developers and the website section. Lastly, I've deleted all links from External links that are not official websites.

Also, I think someone misunderstood the purpose of "retail availability." Zeldafanjtl (talk) 22:21, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey, nice to see someone who actually cares about Project ARA enough to not embed spam links. In the past, I've had to deal with users adding their own website as the official Project ARA website. Just wanted to explain why I've edited the wiki page in this manor. Feel free to edit anything you think needs fixing.

I added "∞ Modular" to show that each part technically has an infinite amount of developers. Much better than keeping it all blank, visually showing the modularity. I recently sourced the developers who worked on the MDK (versions 0.1 and 0.2) and if you want to reference the names just download to MDK (linked at the end).

The external links area I thought was designed for fan forums and communities. Isn't the whole point of external links to direct you to non-official sites? Hence the name, external. Xtorting (talk 06:20, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I understand the intent in populating all the fields in the infobox with "∞ Modular," but I don't think it's an appropriate use of the format. The main purpose of infoboxes is to provide a quick and convenient summary of the key facts about a subject, in a consistent format and layout. "∞ Modular" isn't immediately clear, and as I brought up in earlier discussions on this talk page, I think we should just keep clearly-defined information in the infobox and explain the modularity concept in the prose.

I think you're also misunderstanding the purpose of the External links section. "External" means external to Wikipedia, not external to the subject of the article; it's intended as a place to provide links to the official website of a subject. I think the proper course of action here is to remove the third-party links from the external links section and replace them with the official links from the infobox.

There are a few other things I think are worth changing; the list of developers should be in the article prose as well if they're relevant, "Retail availability" usually refers to the dates a now-discontinued product was available (and so isn't appropriate here) and if the release date is only a rumor, it probably shouldn't be in the article.

I realize the Wikipedia guidelines I've referenced are merely guidelines, but I think in this situation the courses of action they prescribe make sense. What do you think? I'd rather have some input before I go make the edits myself. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 06:42, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Understandable, I simply was editing the sidebar from a previous version stating Toshiba was the only CPU developer. Maybe one line, instead of a dozen, to explain that the hardware is modular. To better explain that developers and hardware variance is virtually endless. Something like "Hardware: completely Modular".

Now I see what you mean by external sites, thought it was directed towards the subject and not Wikipedia. Those should be removed then and replaced with the other websites listed under the official one. I'll edit those quickly myself since I now understand what the exact purpose of an "external site".

I know a bit about how these developers relate to Project ARA, since I met most of the CEO's and representatives at the last Dev Con. I could implement a subject matter specifically for the MDK and how the development of the project is going along. Plus other details about companies developing module shells, modules, and other details relating to the release of Project ARA. Including details about the Market pilot, like pictures of the ARA Ice Cream trucks, and other details about carriers supporting ARA (Project Fi soon I bet).

As far as "retail availability", I agree it should be changed. But to what? The rumor is the Market pilot will be in August, not the release. Global release is not yet know since ARA needs FCC approval first. Maybe keep the Market pilot rumor info, remove the "retail availability" stuff, and add something else like "retail expectations: requires FCC approval" or "release date: unkown, requires FCC approval"?

Also, sorry for not contacting you here first. Just made this account to do so. I've dealt with a few people in the past that own fan sites that have tried to post their own sites as official ARA sites. I try to keep this wiki page as accurate as possible with information not many journalist can figure out. For instance, Project ARA is not $50 MSRP it was quoted at $50 bill of materials costs for developers, that's a huge difference. There's a few other things I'll go into detail under a different bar. I think we need to update this wiki up a bit before Google I/O and we receive a ton of traffic. I'll explain in more detail in about 14 hours after classes tomorrow. Xtorting (talk) 07:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

List of things changed

• Infobox
  • Removed aka. "Ara" isn't really an alternative name for Project Ara, just a shorter version.
  • Removed all developers except Google and Motorola. The list was too long for an infobox, and contributing to the MDK is (maybe) something that would belong in the text of the article.
  • Removed manufacturer. "User" is silly and not the point of this field.
  • Removed product family. This is not intended to be a binary field on whether something is a product family or not; rather, this should have a link to the family a particular product is a part of, and isn't relevant here.
  • Removed retail availability. This is meant to refer to the date ranges a product is available, and isn't relevant for an unreleased product.
  • Clarified that price is projected.
  • Removed unsourced CPU type.
  • Removed all fields labeled as "∞ Modular." It's not immediately obvious why there's an infinity symbol there, and repeating it that many times is a waste of screen real estate and isn't the purpose of an infobox. The fact that there will be many possible configurations for Ara smartphones should be conveyed in the article text.
• Removed all external links except the one to the official website. The Google+ ATAP account hasn't posted for half a year, and everything else was a fansite or fan forum.

I haven't touched the text of the article; I haven't sat down and read through it to see if anything needs to be cleaned up there. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Also I removed the Phonebloks link, since Phonebloks has its own article. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

The above changes were reverted without explanation, so I've restored them. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 00:10, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

According to Tech Times, Ara's magnetic connection system didn't work.. If dropped, all the parts fell apart. Google announced they were pivoting to a new design. That was six months ago. Little news since. Even the Ara project's Twitter feed has gone silent. John Nagle (talk) 20:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The information from the Tech Times article can certainly be integrated into this article, but it's not up to Wikipedia editors to decide if the project has failed or not. As far as we're concerned, it's still in development (the last reported state) until a reputable source says otherwise. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 19:52, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

At some point, we have to pull the plug and switch to "was". Product announcements which don't result in products are common, and often generate little press attention as they quietly are forgotten. See, for example, Hydropolis, Poseidon Undersea Resorts, and The Center, New Mexico. It's probably too soon for Project Ara, though. Another six months, perhaps. John Nagle (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Is there precedent for that? Either way, I think the most definitive we can really get is to say that no further announcements have been made about the product since a given date. Either that, Google officially cancels it or shuts down the development team, or a reputable publication reports that it's in development hell. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 04:06, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Google first tried with regular magnets and that didn't work (google's statement), so they opted for electromagnets or elecrtopermanent magnets. The article by tech times refers to electromagnets. So it could be they are looking for new solution. 89.201.246.254 (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

At least 2 patents filed in 2018. 89.201.246.254 (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

There were at least 3 prototypes showed by google:

1. one shown off at Google I/O back in June 2014
2. Spiral 1
3. Spiral 2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.201.184.8 (talk) 03:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)