Android technology could be on the brink of a game changer, as Google now plans to do for mobile hardware what it did for mobile software.

Last Wednesday, Google’s advanced technology and projects division unveiled its plans for “Project Ara,” the first completely customizable smartphone.

This base model phone comes with only wi-fi connectivity, an emergency battery and the rest is up to you. The interchangeable parts include the camera, the processor and a variety of storage spaces. By purchasing the appropriate hardware separately, you can have a smartphone that is tailored to your lifestyle. The beginning price of the Ara phone will be $50 and is set to release at Google’s developer’s conference in April.

Android has always won over the non-Apple customers with its open source platform and ability to personalize phones using widgets and cool lock screens.

The iPhone has built an incredible reputation but even in its seventh year, its options remain limited. If Project Ara succeeds, we could be looking at a shift of power in the smartphone market.

With the Project Ara phone, a customer could walk into a mobile device store, tell them which applications they use most on a daily basis and walk out with the “perfect” smartphone. If you want to save a bunch of music on your phone, maybe you pay a little more for storage and buy the inexpensive camera. If you take tons of pictures you may want to attach the best-quality camera and not worry so much about the processing speed. Apple prides itself on excellent customer service but building a phone from scratch in front of you is something even their shiny stores can’t compete with.

The popularity of “jailbreaking” an iPhone should be an indicator of users’ desire to customize their smartphones. iOS jaibreaking is the process of removing limitations set by Apple and giving user root access to apps and themes that are otherwise unavailable in the official App Store. Information Technology is one of the highest paying fields out of college and as people across the world become more knowledgeable about mobile development, the longing for a blank canvas phone will only increase.

While Project Ara is an innovative and promising idea, there are still major questions to be answered. It is unclear whether the average consumer is willing to go through the hassle of reading manuals and physically assembling a phone from scratch. We also don’t know the capacity or prices of the hardware pieces to determine if it’s even worth the trouble. One thing’s for sure, it’ll be hard for consumers to complain about something they have complete control over creating. Leaving product’s manufacturing in the hands of the customer isn’t a bad idea.

One in every five people owns a smartphone, yet we don’t say much in what these things do, how they’re made or what they look like. We are attached to these devices all day and rely on them for even the simplest tasks, so it seems only right that everyone should be able to buy the exact phone they want. We all have unique personalities and live very different lifestyles so why should we all have the same phone?

Android developers are daring to be different, which is something Apple once stood for but seems to have forgotten recently. We are months away from seeing how this all plays out but the prospect of building the perfect smartphone is exciting. Even loyal Apple users are beginning to grow tired of minimal changes in design from year to year and this would be the perfect time to jump ship to Android. It seems Google is tired of being second fiddle and wants to overtake the mobile market within the next two years. Your move, Apple.

Aarick Knighton is a sophomore information management and technology major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at adknight@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @aarickurban.

 

Published on March 5, 2014 at 1:00 am