In addition to reducing waste, it's a dream for people who need particular mobile tech but can't afford the best. For example you might have a Moto E budget but need an S5 camera. With Ara, you can build that device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hola!claude
these devices are the future, I hope they will make it to the market,
I say I hope because a manufacturer has not an interest in an upgradable device,
you can see it from the absurd techniques they are exploiting to make the repairability of our gadgets impossible...
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I hope so as well, and I'm certainly not taking it for granted. However there are certain types of manufacturers that would love to have access to this market -- those that can't make an entire phone but will manufacture the upgrades people will install. If you specialize in a piece of hardware you ordinarily sell to phone makers like Samsung and Apple, this opens up a new market to sell direct to consumers. If you're small and couldn't possibly produce and distribute your own phone, an Ara market is a dream.
Google will be the sole maker of the endoskeletons that all the parts plug into, using Quanta (IIRC) to do the actual manufacturing. Three chipset builders have already signed up, and Nvidia is bringing their super fast K1 to the party. There will be a market test, I'm almost sure of that at this stage given how much work ATAP has done, not just on the device, but on community and partner engagement. Whether it will succeed or fizzle (and whether I myself will ever be able to get one) is harder to be sure of.