Thoughts on Project Ara _ The Friday Debate Podcast 001

The Future of Android: A Discussion with Andrew, John, and Josh

Andrew Grush, Editor-in-Chief at Android Authority, sat down with John Joe Hind, co-host and writer for the Friday Debate podcast, to discuss the future of Project Ara, a modular smartphone designed to be customizable and upgradeable. The conversation was joined by special guest Jonathan Feist, also a writer for Android Authority.

The discussion began with a review of Project Ara's current state, with John noting that "they're heading in the right direction" but also acknowledging that "the PC industry has been doing this forever and it's been working." Andrew chimed in, saying that "Android's a whole different ballpark" and expressing doubts about whether Project Ara could be successful as is. However, he also acknowledged that without significant work, ARA may not reach its full potential.

As the conversation progressed, the group discussed the idea of Project Ara being used as an operating system for commercial robotics rather than personal devices. Jonathan Feist suggested that attaching the SC (System Chip) to a robot could give it the ability to interact with the world and receive commands. This idea was met with enthusiasm from Andrew, who noted that "there's definitely room outside of the consumer field" for Project Ara.

The discussion also touched on the topic of similar projects, such as Google's Tango, which has been used in robotics and other industrial applications. John pointed out that these types of projects often begin with a focus on consumer technology, but are later adapted for use in more specialized fields.

As the conversation drew to a close, Andrew reflected on the potential future uses for Project Ara. He noted that while it may not be successful as a personal device, it could still find a home in other areas. "Even if project Gara doesn't necessarily take off as it were for people like us," he said, "it could find a home in plenty of other places."

The Friday Debate Podcast is the first episode of Android Authority's new podcast series, and it promises to be an exciting journey into the world of technology and innovation. With Andrew Grush at the helm, joined by John Joe Hind and special guest Jonathan Feist, this podcast is sure to deliver insightful discussions and in-depth analysis of the latest developments in the tech world.

If you're interested in staying up-to-date with Android Authority's content, be sure to check out their website or follow them on social media. You can also find Andrew Grush's writing at his personal website, Andrewauthority.com, where he shares his expertise and insights on all things Android.

To stay engaged with the conversation, join the discussion at Android Authority's forums, where you can share your thoughts and opinions with other tech enthusiasts. Additionally, be sure to subscribe to the Friday Debate Podcast on YouTube or your preferred podcast platform, as new episodes will be released regularly. Remember, everyone can find their source for all things Android in one place – Android Authority.

And finally, a special thank you to Josh Salute, co-host and writer of the Friday Debate Podcast, who brings his unique perspective and enthusiasm to the conversation each week. His social media handles are available on the podcast's description, where you can connect with him directly.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everybody and welcome to the Friday debate podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every week this week we have our first ever episode so if you are one of our first listeners on this podcast thank you so much for listening and I want to extend a quick thanks to our uh guests here I am of course Joshua vagara from Android authority what's going on everybody and I am your host every single week as we take a topic that we otherwise have on the androidauthority.com website for the Friday debate and we talk its ears off or as I said in our description for our pilot episode if you have hopefully enjoyed it we beat the proverbial dead horse on this topic uh but nonetheless uh welcome to all of you who are here and uh before we even get started I want to go down the line and introduce our great guests for this week I'm going to go ahead and name off uh the three people we have on the panel this week we'll start off with our lead editor Andrew grub hey everyone uh the name is Andrew grush or for those here at Team AA I'm actually better known as gushy uh some of you may already be familiar with my writing on Android authority I was also on last week's pilot for those who watched it for those new to the show I'm the US senior editor like Josh mentioned uh basically that means I do a combination of writing editing and I help with the day-to-day management of the website I've been with Android Authority for about two and a half years now and this is absolutely the best job I've ever had in my life nice and uh like I also put in the description from from the pilot episode from CES 2015 uh grush is also the architect of the Friday debate topic that you may be reading on our website so the topics that uh are occurring not only on the website but in the Friday debate podcast itself are going to be the work of grush and on some level me but also the rest of our team looking for a great topic to bring to you guys let's go ahead and move on over to another writer from our team Jonathan Feist well hello thank you how's everybody doing good Jonathan Feist I'm one of the writers with the team here uh of course we cover all the news coverage I've got the evening shift so you'll see me uh you know first thing in the morning if you're in the UK or Asia and you know middle of the night if you're in the United States um one of my favorite things around here is every Thursday I do an Android customization post uh just a little bit of you know tidbits tips and tricks on how to customize your device and you know so far we've been avoiding the root topics but roots coming up soon so stay tuned very nice and Alo Jonathan has a uh uh what's the term I'm looking for here a uh not a pet name but we have a nice little name that we have for him last name Feist so we call him feisty also so um and now and then of course we have one of our YouTubers our app guy on over here Joseph Hindi hey everybody uh I'm Joe hindy the the Android authority app guy I am also the apps editor over at Android authority I do all the app lists and app reviews and video game reviews um like gushy said said man this is the the best job ever because I literally get paid to play video games and uh I know a lot of people are envious about that and um a fun little fun fact here with this I will have co-hosted or been a guest on every single Android Authority weekly show and I remain the only YouTuber to do that so oh super happy to be here oh nice it's well it's really great to have you guys on here by the way I was about to say uh having John here is going to be really awesome we're going to have probably this particular group uh on most week but we will have some ring guests in and out as time goes on but nonetheless we are here on our first episode and I'm really happy to have Joe here cuz he and I actually have done a lot of YouTube videos together where T typically when I have to do the editing for it I have to have that bleep button ready from time to time but nonetheless we are of course here at the Friday debate and let's go ahead and jump into our topic let's not even waste any time here is what grush had for this week's Friday debate topic that you will be able to read today on Friday of course and it has to do with Project Ara with AA Project Ara that is expected to arrive in Puerto Rico in a pilot program later this year Aura is finally almost ready for prime time or is it do we think that modular phones can find success in the market I think that's where most of our discussion is going to come from but if it isn't ready for the market to find success what will hold it back all right so what we're looking at here is uh basically a phone that you can put together on the Fly and you can take out parts you can put parts back into it and it's a different take on what a smartphone can be very very uh very similar to what a computer can be but it's starting off in Puerto Rico and I know Andrew already said that he had a couple of uh pieces of information about why Puerto Rico was that place sure okay so uh really Puerto Rico might seem odd choice at first but the biggest thing is it's a US Territory so that means uh it's a perfect test Market because uh you know it's still under the FCC guy you know regulations and stuff and so that means that uh they can kind of prepare it for the US market in a limited setting uh and beyond that actually Puerto Rico is a mobile First Nation meaning that uh the majority of people are using uh smartphones to get onto the internet and so that makes it you know a prime target uh and you know it's because of the way Puerto Rico is set up uh they're actually going to be delivering Parts uh instead of having a online Channel initially they're going to deliver it through food trucks actually they're going to have a set of food trucks they're going to go around and let people try out the uh products Hands-On then buy products and heck they're even going to have 3D printers in the back so they're going to be able to customize it on the Fly and uh Puerto Rico just really works out well for that uh not to mention uh Puerto Rico has really good relationships as far as with uh shipping across the world so modular developers from all over are going to be able to easily get parts there and so that's kind of the uh reason why they chose Puerto Rico it might sound like an odd choice but it makes sense no okay well food trucks that's mhm wow are you going to be able to get food with them or is it literally no well obviously they're not really food trucks but you know the you know the style of food trucks that you have in that you know those countries where the come you know it's going to be one of those basically except for it's going to be technology okay well yeah Puerto Rico does make quite a bit of sense but let's go ahead and get into our actual discussion modular phones and specifically uh Project Aura uh let's start off with uh Joe over there let's see what you have to say about modular phones and what it might mean for the smartphone industry um when I think of like modular phones I think of like desktop PCS like what desktop PCS are to computing is essentially what I think Project R would be to smartphones where like people you know it's not I don't think it's going to be super popular um I think it might hit the mainstream but I don't think it's going to have the kind of growth that we see with um things like uh you know oh I'm sorry I'm blanking here it's uh midnight where I am so I'm a little blank right now but uh am I still am I still in the call yeah no you're here all right cool making sure cuz like yeah everything blinked out for a second sorry um but no I think it's going to be something like desktop computers where you know the the people who are going to use Project Ara are people who are Tinkers you know people who really want something more powerful something upgradeable uh you know something that they can keep around for years and years and years as opposed to you know most people who are going to upgrade every couple of years like they do with their laptops um I do think that the thing that's going to hold it back though is Android as in like the operating system because uh in most cases Android is made for the specific phone that it runs on at like at a kernel level like uh all the drivers the camera drivers the you know the CPU stuff and all that stuff is made specifically for that one Android device and if they want Aura to you know you know to to be something that people keep for years and years and years they're going to have to start coming out with like a version of Android that's like a desktop operating system that has all of those drivers already there and they can just install it on anything and uh so I think that's the that's going to be the big thing for for it that's you know I might be way off base I'm not 100% certain on that but well I was going to I was going to put out this notion like doesn't the ecosystem sort of already um allow for um sort of the in and outs of an operating system along with the processor because we have processors like the Snapdragon series that uh can be outfitted with every single band and it also would be able to take on pretty much any Android iteration um if as long as we don't use uh particular types of processors that require a very specific type of Kernel don't you think that maybe just having the Qualcomm basis uh enough uh be enough for Android to to really survive on this project R ecosystem oh no definitely like we're heading in that direction already you know with the like you said with the Qualcomm processors that have all of the um all the various radio bands built into it but you know uh I we were talking about it before the show you know like uh in the chats about how you know like there's going to be the K1 uh the K1 processor for Project R right that's true so yeah so we have nvidia's K1 and then Snapdragon and you know it requires two different sets of you know two different sets of software so you know in order to you know switch one out and put one in you know it would essentially require someone to reinstall Android unless Android were able you know to be run on both you know no matter which one you installed on it would still work just fine kind of like you know how you do with Windows now where you can install it on AMD or Intel it doesn't matter because you know the basic code is there for both of them and I think that's something that Android's going to have to do uh with so many different you know especially with stuff like cameras and then you know at least two different kinds of process and you know all the various Hardware that goes into these things you know it's going to have to come to that point where it's going to be like installing a desktop OS where it doesn't matter what's in Project AA it's still going to boot and it's still going to run yeah and and I think that's going to be the you know the biggest hurdle although you know if it's getting this close to being released it's probably something they've already been working on anyway yeah they have okay um yeah how about you gry what how do how do you feel about uh maybe one day using a phone that is a a conglomeration of pieces well as a computer nerd who still builds his own you know PC rigs uh I absolutely love the idea uh but first I I kind of want to address some of the things that uh that Joe said uh first of all uh yes I can see it being appealing to uh the PC type you know who likes to build their own stuff but actually that's not what Google's really going for uh ideally if you look at like their website and stuff they keep talking about how it's they want to use it to reach you know the next 5 billion you know that's their big Mantra and uh the idea is that you know someone who doesn't have a lot of money could uh you know buy the base unit for around 50 bucks and then uh it would basically just come with a a basic processor a screen that would be low res and just everything needed to get started and then as they saved up money they could slowly but surely add on things and that's they're actually probably marketing more towards Emerging Markets initially uh and so that's you know and I'm not sure how much success they'll find in that uh it really comes down to how easy they make it and actually that leads to something else he was talking about uh it comes down to Android because even with Windows uh you know you have to if you bring in a new part you know you have to still there's driver issues there's installation issues sometimes you run into troubleshooting is Android going to be able to adjust to that well enough and uh you know they are working on that they have a special version of Android L that they're using as the basis that allows for hot swapping of Parts but I'm just not sure if Android is designed to handle this and I'm sure they're thinking about that but uh so basically what I'm saying is that the the aim that they're going for is the emerging markets and I'm just not sure if it's going to hit there but I do think it has some potential for uh the nerd types uh you know it's just it comes down to Logistics I'm not sure if they can pull off you know making the uh Android work well enough for this kind of you know platform well I mean that Emerging Markets uh comment is really interesting we're going to come back to that but I do want to get uh feisty's uh uh thoughts on Project Aura in general what what do you think uh this particular ecosystem might have to offer us well jumping off of what the other guys have said already you know exactly what the operating system and Android itself being the limitation of course Google is keeping tabs on everything and it looks like they're going to control all of the parts through possibly the play store or another Outlet like that uh so I'm not so much worried about that the you know the custom OS version of L like you were saying that uh would pull it all together uh but I think the real key thing here that will make or break Project Ara is the hot swapability uh obviously it's going to have it which is is a positive without it I I cannot imagine people wanting to you know shut down their device each time so that they could swap a piece and and move forward that hot swapability will be a key factor and you know the the tech crowd that's interested in this device that I think is going to be pretty much the same crowd as you know those interested in the Raspberry Pi device and the ardu kits and you know those things are great devices they're a ton of fun but I really think they're Limited in scope it's not uh not exactly a general public that's going out and buying those things so I have my concerns over ARA yeah I think I might agree with you uh John because I think one of the one of the main aspects of the whole modular phone uh type deal is that well I mean customization is going to be very big for this particular device and uh like people have been reporting on already uh the whole customization process for it kind of takes on a motomaker feel and that's kind of great because motomaker really made the Moto X one of the best phones over the last couple years but the problem with making it into a modular sense is that well who knows what type of modules we're going to even have in order to create the phone that we want and um who knows what will happen when third parties kind of get in on this will everything come from just one manufacturer and even then what modules are going to be made available because from uh from what we've already seen so far in these prototypes is that we have things like the Tegra K1 which actually sounds pretty awesome even though the X1 was just uh was just announced and that would be even better but uh we have 720p displays and whatnot and coming off of Andrew's side of things I do think that it will become a nice Emerging Market product but I don't think that's where it's going to really I think it's going to greatly evolve from that I mean when we talk about price point uh everyone's saying that a modular phone could be low priced but if you want to go above and Beyond just how much are we going to have to pay for these different for these different uh Parts well if I can jump back in there u i I cannot stop thinking about Google Glass you know the you know the the pilot project for that one you know Explorer Edition was still $1,500 and you know you might think that Project Ara and Project Glass have about the same chances of survival and well glass is essentially being shut down here here for a little bit yeah and it's it's nice that it's going to be in Puerto Rico I do think that's a good thing because you know that that kind of makes it seem like uh that it's going to be for emerging markets but I really don't think that it's ever going to stay there um people there's there's going to be phone Envy no matter what but um like as far as these these these modules are concerned we haven't seen too many of them yet what are the kind what what would a phone uh look like with all the modules that you would want to have in there we already have a lot of examples in this phone market of these high-end devices but what of these parts would you mix and match together let's let's start off with Android on that one well as far as uh you can mix and match just about anything there's different sizes and it goes onto uh the back and there's a magnetic force that keeps them in place I think the front uses pins but the back is where most of the customization happens and uh there's going to be initially around 20 to 40 different modules and uh it's not just going to be like processors and RAM there's also going to be like different kinds of sensors you know uh things that could be specialized for workplaces things that could be specialized for home use and uh you know that Bas which is what gets me concerned how they're going to make all that work but uh yeah basically they're going to allow you to swap any kind of part and any basically there's no limits to what a uh uh what someone can develop for it which is a fascinating concept but uh once again Logistics I think is going to get in the way how are they going to manage all this how are they going to make sure everything's working right you know like uh feisty did mention that you you know they're going to do this through a storefront at some point which is true but even so just testing all of it for all the different configurations because you have you know let's say at some point you have a 100 different modules they're going to have to test each of these in different scenarios with different pairings and I just I think it's going to be a mess I think it's a great idea but I think it's going to be a mess yeah I mean uh that that was that was something that I kept thinking of while we were talking about this was just what will what will the other manufacturers have to say and will project AR be strictly a Google project that isn't isn't isn't really outsourced out you know what I mean they're allowing anyone but uh the the frames initially are going to be built by Google so the you know the main frame the spiral 2 was the the newest one that's going to be by Google but the modules can be by anyone uh but what I'm really you know you were talking about how uh you could see it moving into you know outside of the Emerging Markets which is true but uh the big concern there is uh how carriers will react and how will they play a part are they going to get on board where they're designing their own modules I could see Verizon doing that having giant Verizon logos everywhere on the back of the modules oh jesz God that'd be horrible the Verizon bloat wear module yep oh my oh God God that'd be terrible how great would that be though if the if all of the bloat wear from like 18th TI of Verizon was just on one little module that you could just you could just pluck out oh dud yeah good luck that I just had a great video idea if they do do that we have to do the smash the Verizon bloat module video I'll do it I'll volunteer do it I have a sledgehammer I think people would really love that I think that'd be great but I I I I love I love where that's going like the that's the thing that I can't get out of my head when I keep thinking about Project Ara is they just it there's so much room for creativity and creation but there's also so much room for regulation and I I'm really scared of what you're right these carriers would do with project area that's where I think the major Pitfall like it they're not going to like it huh you don't think so not at all I mean unless they can find a way to control it and I'm not sure it kind of comes down to what Google you know allows them to do or doesn't allow them to do but the idea of having to you know certify all these parts and make sure they're approved is Verizon it's going to be bad for the carriers like Verizon but it's going to be bad for consumers too I think in a way because uh you know are uh is Verizon going to have lockouts where only certain modules work that they've approved for their Network because you know Verizon is one you know and so is at& they're all are uh where they like to test everything very you know vigorously and if it doesn't meet their standards and so are they going to allow any old module to work with it that's where it gets you know at first I'd say into the very foreseeable future probably 5 10 years I think it's going to be an unlocked only thing I don't think carriers are going to even be involved yeah I mean going to be a lot I imagine people are going to have just like the skeleton available cuz that might be all they can afford at the moment yeah and then just kind of put things in little by little um Joe any anything to weigh in on here about availability rather of Project Ara given carriers and whatnot uh I think I think gush's pretty much right I think it's going to be one of those unlocked things it's going to be just like the Nexus was when it first came out you know the Nexus one was only unlocked you could only really buy that you know from Google's website and then you know it wasn't until what was it like the Nexus S that you could actually buy it on a carrier um I I think it's going to be exactly the same thing with Project R I think it's going to be one of those things where you have to buy it straight from Google you're going to have to buy the parts at least the initial Parts straight from Google um and then as it evolves it'll start falling into more hands you start getting it in more places but no I think Rush is absolutely correct on this on that one excuse me so I want to if you don't mind I I wouldn't mind posing a question actually yeah any of you guys seriously just like Chim in whenever you wish so you know I I I've heard you all say hey it's a cool idea you know for the nerd side of me to be able to build Parts how much would you be willing to pay for such a you know for such a thing I mean what would you consider like for the bass uh for the processors I mean how much to build the phone you want how much would you be willing to S this requires a lot of knowledge as to how much these parts are even requireed how much true I'm just saying you know ballpark I mean do you feel that you know it that to build a complete phone should it be pretty close to what you're paying for a flagship or are you willing to pay you know a th000 plus I mean yeah that's yeah that's really interesting how about um how about with the price that you kind of put out there what what what are the modules you would put in that hopefully create that price point how about that um you know like from my perspective it would depend on on the benefits because you know you go and dump $1,500 into a desktop and you're going to be able to play like the latest games at you know Flawless 1080 sometimes even you know 2K 4K at you know 30 60 frames per second depending you know and it's it there's value in spending that much in a desktop PC and even you know spending 20 you know $2,000 on a laptop you know there's value in that and I think the question it's not necessarily like what would you pay uh to build a project or phone but I think the better question is um what value is there in spending that much more because I know that one of the things you know as gushy mentioned like for workplace so like you know if you're a handyman and you can turn your you all right this is a horrible example I want to go with it anyway but you can turn your phone into like a Geer counter by popping in a module you know that that person would probably be able yeah I would definitely pay you know $200 for a Geer counter module but you know for me you know I'm a gamer uh all you know all Flagship Android phones currently play all of the games so you know what's the benefit to spending extra money if I'm not going to get any extra benefit from anything that's out right now yeah I think it's it's it does matter whether or not a let's say mid-range phone it doesn't cost more than current mid-range offerings and I think that's that's going to be sort of a key when it comes to whether or not this kind of ecosystem is going to be uh successful at least from the outset Feist what does a uh what does a what does a project r a phone look like for you at what price point uh see this is a tough one um I've thought about this a lot actually and there is no possible way for me to build a Project Ara device you know I would need a 14in tablet to have enough space for all of the pieces that I want nice and and I think that uh you know that speaks again to the hot swapability of the pieces however uh you know just at at Christmas time here I I picked up a few little phones I mean they were $30 a piece uh wrote about them on the site they're actually pretty good little phones and I'm using them for specific purposes you know one is an MP3 player one takes pictures you know they I've already got these cheap devices they're set to the side they're Focus driven I think if I were building a project R device I might have to buy or build more than one so that again I can have these multiple devices with with specific purpose um so that becomes a problem for me because well like you're saying price tag if every module is anywhere from you know $20 to $300 that that price tag is going to be over thousand in no time yeah I just really think that it's that the price will rocket so easily when it comes to a lot of these parts you know and and and you were talking about having different phones for different or different devices for different situations I mean isn't that the sort of the point of a modular phone however is being able to take out let's say a uh let's say you take out like oh I was thinking about in joose case you know what if he wanted to really test out an app for performance he would take out his Snapdragon 600 which costs let's say $200 and then pop in the Integra X1 that hopefully one day will come in you know and then you can really do some benchmarking on an app um you really think you would need more than one skeleton for for everything you do Feist yes absolutely I'm as is I'm already using more than one phone and they serve different purposes I mean again I'm holding down 16 different jobs okay not that many but it feels like it some days so you know you can only install so many Google accounts onto a single device and you know while one device is making a phone call you need that next device to be doing something else and then you know if you're using one device as an MP3 player it's on the other side of the room is hooked up to the stereo you're not taking calls on that uh see one device one project R device with hot swappable pieces again not for me maybe as one of my devic is even my main device oh wow I wasn't expecting that to be the way that you took it like the the the uh that's really cool though that's really cool though that you you know yourself so well as a user to be able to know that but wow that's interesting I imagine you have like example of an extreme multitasker exactly you have like you have like a phone for every little task it's like you have like I imagine you like surrounded by 10 phones right now all doing something different uh there's only six sorry only six all right how about you gushy what does a uh what what is is your price point for something like this honestly uh I'm not rich so it comes down to what I can afford but you know I would easily pay $800 or so uh maybe even a thousand if I could have enough components for where I see the potential in AA is okay so I have my Base phone it has you know a Snapdragon you know 805 810 Whatever by the time I get to it you know it has a base amount of ram 3 gigs maybe you know it has basic storage but you know I'm going to go camping this weekend let's say and so you know I'm not going to be I'm going to have an actual decent camera with me so I'm not going to be using the camera on my phone so I'm going to take that module out I'm going to put in an extra battery or so I'm going to move things around and just the ability to say hey now I have two three four days of battery life because I've loaded this thing up maybe I put in a weaker processor because I'm not going to need that but I want good battery life so if something happens I can make a call make a text uh that's really why I think AA is amazing is you know you can adjust the phone's Hardware based on your use case you know there might be time s where I need you know the best processor and I put that in or I might need more battery life or I might need a good camera and that's where I think ra will have a lot of potential for the the nerd type uh for the merging type it's going to just come down to hey I can slowly but surely update this and they're not going to want to pay a lot they're not going to need very powerful processors and I think that AA can cater to both sides yeah I think that's where the phone Envy is going to come in though you're going to have those people that are like oh I got this Snapdragon 400 I keep thinking of project Arta in terms of what I put in there will make me feel like I have a certain type of phone so let's say someone makes a motoa and and they uh they work with that and one day they're like okay um I got I got a little bit more money or I really want this boost in productivity or or or or processing power I'll throw in that Snapdragon 805 and make this a Moto X and um I I do think that that there's a lot of uh there's a lot of uh benefit to something like that I also think that um hopefully hopefully hopefully the uh the price point is going to be very reasonable depending on the parts that you get uh maybe I really think that they're going to kind of take advantage of that the fact that someone doesn't have to pay for everything right away so they can uh I guess overprice certain parts so you have to settle you know I I kind of I I'm I'm a little bit cynical like that I I'm like that sometimes where um I really feel like I have to settle for certain parts or certain things before I can really go to the upper echelon um but it's funny how you know I feel like Andrew grush uh the way that you put it that's really what Google's trying to go for is whole idea of slowly upgrading and then Google's probably listening to this right now and thinking Jonathan feice is not one of those customers that we want uh but you know so let's let's let's get a little bit creative here I want I want to know um what kind of modules do you want on your phone gush was talking about I don't really need a camera you know what what let's let's let's reach for the brass ring here what what are the things that you really want on your phone that may have been there before or is not there now um something that you really would want to put on yours uh no no expense Spar you know something I was thinking about while uh while these guys were talking was how cool would it be to have like a module that would allow you to switch like your entire Android experience from say your phone to your Smartwatch or to your you know Google Glass or something like that and be like okay well I'm done with Google Glasser right now I'm going to pop this module out stick it back in my phone and you know I have those apps and that data available to me whenever I need it and I thought that' be something I thought was I was just kind of working with it in my brain it's literally 4 minutes old but you know to have like you know have a module in my Android Wear Smartwatch pull it out put pop it in my phone you know install some apps on there do some customization on and stuff like that pop it back out you know put it back in the watch you know body you know up Project Ara wear I guess and does not roll off the tongue very easily no it doesn't but you know and just be able to customize you you know instead of you know thinking about one device that you can put everything into you know think of it more as like you have two or three devices that you can interchange everything with like you know something like what Feist would you know want just not with multiple phones but just multiple Gadgets in general like you pop out a module stick it in your car and all of a sudden you have access to your Google Play music you know stuff like that that I thought would be really kind of cool and that would be something that would spend a lot of money on feisty's probably over there like no that's too much work when I get in my car when I get when I get in my car there's already a phone there yeah that's the car phone you know it he's got one on the glued on the dashboard another one taped on the visor it pulls it down and there's the navigation the story's coming soon show you how all right I don't think I really want to know the answer to this but is there one in the bathroom too ready to go oh that's like that's like the 12 in uh Samsung Note Tablet true that's where the tablet comes into play no comment that's a great idea though being able to hot swap from one apparatus to another and I'm just trying I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a project rware would I would even look like a project Weare R whatever they want whatever they would call it I imagine it would have to be pretty big to be able to hold something like that now we're talking like 20 2050 like but when Computing finally gets that small I suppose well it wouldn't be like a permanent thing when you stick it into your phone like I'd imagine just having it pretty much the size of an LG G watch and just being able to like pop off the screen but like the screen also contains all of the circuitry underneath for the you know the storage and what have you and then when you pop it into the phone you know the phone has the RAM and the processor already so you don't need to take that with you you know you keep all that stuff in the watch and then just take the you know the removable stuff and then being able to I don't know it's just again five minutes now I've been thinking about this so but I I can't imagine it would be that big if they did it right I mean some of those modules are pretty you know freaking small it's not like these things are the size of coffee tables true and honestly that that uh even in under five minutes that already sounds like a pretty well hashed out idea it's just a matter of obviously the R&D um but let's talk about a a smartphone here Joe what's the one module you got to have on the back of that phone um or the front if you want to talk about the display that that's a really good question um given what I do with my Android devices I would want the best conceivable CPU GPU either combination or individually and I actually hope that something they do is separate them and allow us to upgrade our our GPU and CPU separately cuz that would be awesome yeah um just like a desktop but I would want the the best of the best in there because if there's anything I can't stand it's game lag especially on Android where you can't just like turn down the graphics on most games to get the frame rates up so you know like I was playing um like rip tide gb2 on my Note 3 and it stuttered once and I almost threw the damn thing against the wall because I was like no you're a Note 3 you do not do that to me so that that's what I would do you're a you're a stutter Nazi that's why like it's just like the moment you see like a little bit of stutter on like a like a touch wisting like no worst worst thing ever I I can handle it in the UI it's not so bad but you know in games it's like ah come on for real okay fair enough um okay cool well um I agree there definitely um how about uh feisty over there what's what's the one thing you need to have on the back of your aura I would actually like like a full IO panel I want USB ports I want HDMI out I want you know of course that's what feisty says well yeah you know U it's tough sometimes a lot of these phones that you know they just they don't connect to anything you know sometimes a physical connection is nice to have and for me that's a major disadvantage to a lot of android devices now again you wouldn't want to use that all the time and certainly when you're on the go it doesn't much matter but you know I spend most of my time at the house you know sitting at the office and connecting to the stereo is important connecting to an external monitor is very important to me there you go that was what I was going to ask so what exact what things exactly you're going to be uh connecting to here and you said the Monitor and stereo and whatnot but if you have like a full panel with like I with like USB ports and whatnot are you transferring data back and forth a lot or is is that what the idea is there uh well there is some data of course we do a lot of screenshots and having to transfer those but I mean Wireless is easy enough for those um uh specifically I think of the media I'm always listening to music um I'm surprised you can't even hear it in the background right now I'm kidding I turned it off I turned which phone is which phone is uh is playing that right now actually I find the LG devices are have some fairly decent now I would love High Fidelity that would be very nice um and there again would be another chip that I would want to go with that is is you know I I don't want just plain old MP3 playback I want some high-end lossless audio Flack right well I get a lot of flack over that no sorry bad joke very nice puns are punny it's uh it's interesting you bring up the audio part because really the one of the modules that you're going to be having to put on the back of there might be a speaker grill for example and what I noticed at least on the front of these is um you know this ecosystem is going to take on an identity of its own there's really only room for a for a screen up front you can't really find space for like a boom sound speaker front-facing you know unless I'm wrong uh that's actually uh looking at the skeleton they did design it so you could have a smaller screen on there that you could have room for actually that was in one of the early presentation slides so it is possible okay who knows what they're going to put on the front though but that I'm going to save that for for for after we hear from gruchy because I it's great that you said that because I really that's where I would put one of my Most Wanted modules but I I'll get into that after we hear what gush's aurura would look like what's the one module you got to have wait hold on one second before uh before G starts I know exactly what module feisty wants on the back of his phone a whole second phone hey perfect one yeah have one phone turn the damn thing over and there's a whole another phone with fresh stuff right there brilliant nice by Aces yeah oh man that's true all right sorry gushy Bud go ahead oh it's all good um let's see uh maybe a taser hey we're thinking outside of the box a little bit why not who doesn't want a taser no I mean uh in all seriousness for me batteries uh the more battery life the better coming from an Nexus 5 and having to carry around tons of uh external battery packs all the time I mean I I think I had like four at CES uh oh I remember yeah that was yeah I had like everywhere I kept plugging them in and so coming from that uh batteries would be very important to me but you know just thinking outside of myself uh you know just wanted to make the point uh some of the stuff I could this was just floating around my head when we were talking uh just stuff for like Health too like a glucose monitor for example you know built into the phone you know that would be awesome a man after my own heart gushy knows I that's that's why yeah that's where came kind of thought's kissing up to me right now no it just kind of popped into my head I was like Hey that would be kind of cool listeners for those of for those of you who do not know already I've said this many times on our Channel on YouTube I am a type 2 diabetic so I've been very much into the health portion of Android as of late uh but yeah that's uh definitely I'm in full agreement on that I didn't even think about that yeah just all those kind of sensors you know there's all sorts of Health sensors that could be built in you know people who have special you know who either have special Health needs or special education you know there's a lot of room for that oh yeah for sure um yeah like a glucose meter I'm trying to think of what some other ones would be like a like a legit heart rate monitor but I mean you can't really something that's not the cheap little yeah junky ones that Samsung gives us yeah exactly um yeah no one said like fingerprint monitor I fingerprint scanner rather or anything like that um but yeah Iris scanner an iris scanner that would be so tight but you have to turn the phone around and then look into it true yeah they they'd have to have room on the front for that or something you know yeah definitely I love I think I think you you won with Taser though I feel yeah taser would be awesome I mean who doesn't want a taser just yeah yeah I just imagine like some like 21-year-old like club hopping like girl like walking out of a club like hold on Becky this guy's F me and turn her phone around and just jab a guy in the ribs with it turn back around talk to again but you know who be like dude Spies spies would be able to like do all kinds of really awesome stuff with project it'd be the James Bond phone exactly you have like a laser that can cut things and like you go to take a picture and it shoots pepper spray stuff like that didn't they have a taser phone one time though wasn't it like the Matrix phone like when taser phone I'm trying to remember that was a while back I remember covering that yeah it was yeah there was one actually it was the phone from The Matrix wasn't it the second Matrix I'm trying to remember the the you know the Matrix of the movie right and then yeah there was really a there was a iPhone case though or something or it was some I think it was an iPhone case that really exists that had a taser built into it yeah that I remember reading about a while back okay well that's fine so it's been done technically um batteries gushy that you mentioned um one one report that I that I read was saying that when you able to take out when when the battery gets down low um this the skeleton or rather the the the the actual driver CPU of the of the project Rhone will be able to draw power from the battery that's about to die so that you have enough time to remove it and then put another one in yep um that sounds pretty awesome I just got to say but I mean it's just another okay one day we're going to talk about this I'm sure it's going to be a Friday debate topic but I'm really getting sick of all of these different arounds that all these companies have when really the main problem we have is batteries are really not where they should be right now it's like the one piece of a phone that hasn't really evolved over the last or or they're too worried about thinness you know and uh you know not that we want brick phones but I think most of us would be willing to sacrifice a little bit of space for a bigger battery oh yeah no definitely um I have had this conversation with a lot of people you know across the the Blogger industry where they say like oh the biggest problem with Android is you know the Oe skins or the biggest problem with Android or the cameras aren't as good as iOS I'm like no the biggest problem with Android and the one that everybody complains about is the fact that these things die after 16 hours mhm you know with with pretty medum or like two hours if you have a Nexus oh oh a one-year-old Nexus I can imagine that yeah the battery is not so yeah it's not so hot anymore it's starting to it's starting to have lots of issues let's just put it that way I love my Nexus 5 but it's starting to have some problems I mean I remember the Galaxy Nexus was so bad that Sprint was giving out ex they were giving out extended batteries for free like I I got one they were like oh yeah you know you can have this extended battery for free and they just sent it and it fit in the original shell and everything like but that you know I totally agree like you know a lot of people have a lot of problems with Android but the the biggest problem that everybody has is hey this battery sucks yeah like no matter like I have an Nvidia Shield I got it 4 days ago I can kill the thing in 10 hours flat and it's got like I think it's over five ,000 milliamp hours in the battery I think it's even larger than that and I can still kill it in 10 hours and that's just it's absurd yeah I can imagine people with a with AA phones having a specific pocket in their bag with just a bunch of battery modules that would be me we need a module that actually will accept all of the other different types of batteries you know we've all got the extra batteries from our previous phones and previous lives and you know be able to use those instead of having to buy new on would be nice that be kind of cool actually that would be kind of cool it's a fat it's a fat module to be able to put in like a D battery or like a n battery off to Kickstarter we go well I guess for me uh what I was going to say was um yeah the the module that I would really want would be on the front and that's because I have been very very open about the fact that I miss old form factors and one of them happens to be the phone that has a fraking keyboard I knew this was coming exactly cuz back when we were at CES now this is going to be a little bit controversial but I was actually saying that I was very close to just going to a local store and picking up the new BlackBerry because I I had the original Blackberry Bold because that keyboard was just amazing back in the day and now they have a newer version and I can talk about Blackberry right now because you can sideload Android on there so okay so I'm not really betraying everybody right now but really that that keyboard is kind of compelling to me and um like I was telling the guys right before our podcast I actually about to go through a full review process and uh Vlog about my my adventures with the original Google phone the G1 and this is the one where the screen literally slid out of the way and there was a full qued keyboard um if I could get a screen like that on my AA phone I would love that but um if I could maybe maybe put a little bit of uh a little bit of space on the bottom in order to put like a full Cordy keyboard on there um let's just say of blackberry quality then I think that would be really great I yeah go ahead I was going to say uh on the subject of like the hinging screens uh did any of you guys ever use the HTC G2 the the successor to the G1 mhm right it had that really unique like Z hinge that like you know yeah was kind of odd could you imagine that like on a project AA phone being able to have like a whole second row of modules that you could just slide out and pop back in oh man that would be crazy yeah take the keyboard out and just have a whole second row of of all the of more module space I know Josh was talking about the screen that literally slid out of the way and I was like well what if you just put more modules behind it like and still have the screen just kind of slide over and I mean that phone would be the size of a Bible but you know it would be interesting I think yeah you know if our phones are getting big enough as it is you know and I really don't imagine that there aren't going to be people out there who who just stack on stack on stack modules you know and um who knows maybe people maybe like I said Kickstarter let's just get over the kickstarter and someone's going to make a module that will add another panel for modules or something like that I think it's that kind of openness of modules that will kind of make or break the the Emerging Markets I think of China for example and this may be a bad example and I'm going here but uh you look at all of the copyright violations that that happen in China and I think that would be a huge huge a major factor for you know Project Ara moving forward uh we can get 3D printed modules here you can get the Verizon logo you can get a picture of your kitten your puppy your child uh but I imagine that over in a lot of the Asian markets uh you would get the Hello Kitty modules you would get the appropriately the Transformer modules and I think those could you know again the openness and to be able to downgrade maybe the specifications to bring the price down but but that kind of personaliz I think will go big in a lot of those markets I do agree yeah there might even be modules that are just made to look you know it's yeah uh they actually talked about that a little bit plus uh they're going to make it so you can pretty much customize like any module you can have the back customized you know it different what what did they refer that to as again a shell the shell right the shell for the module or what I'm trying to remember well yeah there the shell is the or the frame where the uh endoskeleton is the actual thing that all the pieces go into I can't remember exactly what they're called I think they just call mod there's no name for the actual modules I'm trying I swear I saw this term where there was there it's it's three things it's the it's the exoskeleton the module and then the thing that goes on top of the module to give it its look that was that was the part I couldn't I can't remember what the the term was um but in any case I I do completely agree that that's going to happen one day I it's only a matter of time before something like this is going to turn into a commercialization type of deal and um which uh you know I kind of uh you guys got me thinking uh as far as if they're having Kickstarter and all these places people throwing out modules Google's probably going to have to if they're going to make this work they're probably going to have to have some kind of like DRM or you know some kind of like digital Rights Management that you know only ones that have been approved by Google will work because or else Android's not going to be able to handle all that you knowless what I was getting at though was they're goingon to have to yeah yeah if it goes through Google and everything has to be so to speak DRM or approved for copyright decency but will that limit things I think it'll really block things especially in the Emerging Markets es you know if if you look at a you know Disney properties U you know you go to the Disney Store and you buy a baseball cap it's got Mickey on the top you pay a premium for that and premium is exactly the opposite of what these Emerging Markets need yeah and those companies are going to be the ones who will be able to Market up like that's that's uh you pay a little bit more for something that's got Mickey's face on it or God forbid Frozen and um you know something like that you know just you got to pay just a little bit more to just have that branding on there and then you know it's it's not a topic we have to get into right now but you know just imagine what ARA would look like for kids and you know what all of these parents are going to have to deal with in order to create these phones that their kids will enjoy using because of what is on top of them The Branding and all of the the the the the the the stuff that these companies do to them to make them more not say kid-friendly but the same would go for even adults like what uh imagine somebody with like um logo goes on the back or just just any company could probably make just their own ways of making some of creating a module or whatever cover goes on top of it and it's um it's it's uh Project Ara I think to me is going to be a very nice way of shaking up the system but whereas originally I don't know if everyone remembers this but originally this was a was it Indiegogo or was it Kickstarter that this originally was um it was yeah no project no before project AA there was a company that was oh you're talking about foam blocks foam blocks there it is uh they were just basically they had a concept idea uh and then uh Motorola because they were the ones that were behind this originally uh they came out and talked to phone block said hey actually we have this we've been working on this for a while and uh they weren't going to announce uh Project Ara until you know I think it was still six months or so out from being announced but since uh phone blocks had already given them the perfect introduction basically they started teaming up and since then phone blocks has been basically working with uh uh Google now since you know Motorola is no longer part of Google uh and uh they've been doing a lot of updates they you know you go to their site and they'll have all these updates for what you know motor I mean sorry Google is doing with Project Ara and so yeah it started with foone blocks but it wasn't it wasn't like an open source project it was just more like a concept they were like hey this is what we think would be cool and they wanted to get people interested in the idea they were trying to generate and that's why like I remember when we first covered covered this we were like that's a pipe dream that will never happen happen but then all of a sudden motor roua came out and said hey we're doing it I was like wow okay I guess this can happen true and what came with it was the backing and also all the pitfalls of being part of a of a huge corporation is what I'm trying to say and uh you know it's uh it would be really interesting to see where this comes out do you guys think that um I mean if it's going to come out in Puerto Rico then what's to stop any of us even from just getting one from there and going going straight to the source and go ahead and do like a preliminary review on it I'm sure a lot of people in the outlets and media Outlets are going to go ahead and find a way to get it from PTO Rico you know and I'm you know uh who uh we're going to get our we're going to get a pretty good look at it here in 2015 I think eBay for the win yeah right well and I'm I'm sure they'll probably be pretty tight on the regulations like you know kind of like they were with Google Glass you're not technically supposed to resell it you know I'm sure they'll do some of that yeah definitely you know but that it won't stop people from getting their hands on it mhm yeah um okay so I guess um I guess the final question that I want to pose here because we live in a world right now in the smartphone let let's say Android space where we basically have the incumbent is the way we we'll say it all of these big companies that are here Samsung LG and whatnot do you think that creating an ecosystem like a project or a ecosystem is going to change the way that all of these companies move forward with the way that they create smartphones or do you think this is going to be an there's going to be a Mass adoption of this type of uh this type of ecosystem um I think it's going to be the sorry little fim there um I think that oems are probably going to end up manufacturing parts for Aura assuming it does get a hold in you know in the mobile industry because that can be you know that could be a savior for some like you know Samsung is on the fall according to their sales numbers HTC's you know been down so many times it's like they got mud stomped or something and you know HTC you know manufacturing parts for project AA could be another way for them to get back into the mobile industry without having to come out with a phone that beats the iPhone or a Samsung phone in sales every year so um and I know that that was something that was I I think it was vaguely discussed when this whole thing first started happening was you know that that there were going to be uh oems that you know bought into the Project Ara premise and I think that's something that's going to happen if project starts taking off you know there's just another way of getting revenue for them okay uh feisty you don't think that we're going to see like a like a Samsung modular phone anytime in the future do you think that they're they're they're going to be like how Joe said they're just going to create the parts and kind of sort of piggyback on the success of this ecosystem hopefully if it is successful am I allowed to say yes and no okay expl so well okay getting the humor out of the way talking you use the name Samsung who knows what they're going to build they might build six different versions but anyways um project teasing oh no yeah I can certainly see a lot of the companies getting involved in it and possibly putting out a module or two um but I actually think that Project Ara will work backwards um we're going to see the third party people come in with some great ideas for modules and then the Samsung's HTC's and stuff are going to not build their own module versions but just build these things into their own phones I think that's kind of where it'll go H so a bit of a mixture of the two absolutely yeah that'd be pretty interesting what if what if there's a uh what what if a phone came out that just had one little area for one module that you can change in and out to just add something to what is already existing um that might be one way of looking at it um gushy uh yeah uh they both uh both Joe and feisty made some really good points uh I don't think that it it comes down to how successful it is but uh yeah there's going to be CopyCats in fact uh none of you may know this uh and some of you might uh there already is a copycat project in the works uh from ZTE called the uh Ecom mobus I believe it's called see one more time it's called uh it's zte's I believe it's eom mobus I think it's or mobus I'm not 100% sure on the pronunciation of it but it's zte's take on Project Ara and it's they haven't shown really much they just talked about it basically and so you're going to see I think you're going to see the the Chinese companies uh make clones uh if they think that they can push this especially if it starts taking off in the Emerging Markets you don't think China these Chinese companies are going to want to get a piece of that pie and they're not going to want to work together they don't uh and so you're going to see you're going to see all of them you're going to see Oppo you're going to see uh you know you're going to see Huawei you're going to see all these companies making their clones I don't think the big boys Samsung LG I don't think they will initially uh I could see them getting involved with modules but I don't know if they'd want to do that because that would dilute from you know their core stuff I I believe that feisty has the right angle I could see them taking you know hey this module's really cool let's throw this on our phone you know I see them taking that route more and actually uh Josh you made a good point I could see there being you know with they control it say hey okay well there's one little area where you can we have 15 different things you can swap into that one spot yeah you know you can have either a heart rate monitor or a fingerprint scanner or exactly or you know an extra battery or whatever you know yeah and I could see you know I could see that but I don't I don't see Samsung or any of the the bigger players getting involved but I do see that I do see the Chinese and even the Indian companies uh I do see them jumping in uh especially if it's proved successful in the Emerging Market yeah definitely and if there's anywhere that you're seeing some real I guess may maybe the word is not quite Innovation maybe that word is a little strong but if you want to see some real creativity then yeah we have seen quite a bit coming out of the Chinese market I agree with that um I also think what what I was thinking was what if the exoskeleton was created by a particular manufacturer that brought with it certain features that you then added on to with the modules that more or less are interchangeable no matter what skeleton you have I think it would be hard to uh convince uh the Manu you know Samsung and all the other manufacturers to uh play nice to one standard cuz what's in it for them you know they won't be able to control it uh they won't be able to decide what modules work what don't I I don't think they would uh just like carriers I don't think they're going to want to play ball to that level yeah that's true I do agree with you there it's kind of a cynical point of view but I really do think that has a lot of Merit sorry I would hope to think that they could all come into one standard I mean I guess they've done it in the PC industry to an extent perhaps yeah what were you saying Feist uh I was just going to say U you know grush is saying that these guys are not likely to play well together is Google the competition are they going to play nice with Project Ara in the first place yeah yeah no that was H that was one of the points I I brought up way earlier at the beginning was you know having Android you know work in such a manner that you know you can do the hot swapping and all that stuff um if it were built to do that um what exactly could Google do to stop them from not playing nice you know cuz it it would you know Android would Boot and work on anything as long as the drivers were already in there so you know it wouldn't matter whether or not they wanted to play nice because the software would already be compatible you know just just like Windows is or just like Linux is you know you can you know if you can install if you can install it on anything then you know you don't need anybody to play nice it's just there for people to use whenever which is like I said earlier that's why it's it's going to be a logistics nightmare uh they I'm not for sure how they're going to regulate it but Google's going to figure out a way to keep them from doing certain things and it's that's where I think it's going to run into a lot of what make or break is how they're how they handle it how they work with manufacturers how they work with module developers we've seen a little bit and Google's been very open with this project so far but uh it's just a it's really a a massively ambitious project I'm still not convinced that it's feasible long term I I I know it's coming out soon technically but as far as truly getting out in large numbers I don't know I still think it's quite a ways off yeah I think I think really that's that's a good that's a good point on uh consensus there is like we we got to see it in the wild first before we can make any real judgments on it but obviously speculation is speculation and that's exactly what we do here at the Friday debate um but uh you know like I said we we're we're uh we're discussing Project Ara here and I just wanted to open up the panel one last time before we went ahead and said goodbye to our our listeners here thank you so much for listening to our first episode of this podcast all of our guys Over Here Andrew Joe and John um any last thoughts on Project Aura in general um no sorry it's almost 1:00 in the morning I'm brain dead right now perfectly fine we did like I said talk the ears off of this thing so I'm sure that uh if we didn't have any that's perfectly fine how about you guys Andrew and John I think we're headed the right direction here uh you know Project R it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun if nothing else uh certainly cly the the modular design and the ability to get in at hopefully a lower price point and then build it up from there and and survive through upgrades you know bring in the new processor so that you can support you know the newer operating systems and you hopefully keep that exos skeleton through a few different iterations of Android I think it's along the right tracks um I just as gushy said I think the logistics might kill this poor thing yeah um you know basically what feisty said uh I feel that uh they're heading in the right direction I think it's a really ambitious project at one point I wasn't for sure if they could do anything with it and they're getting there uh they're heading in the right direction but I think that uh I on one hand the PC industry has been doing this forever and it's been working but uh Android's a whole different Ballpark and I'm just not convinced that without some massive work I think we're not there uh you know maybe by the you know three or four iterations of Android from now maybe they will develop that but I think we're still 5 years off before ARA could really be what it needs to be a game changer as it work yeah exactly I think it's just going to be one of those little hey cool did you hear of that they're doing this with ARA but as far as any major you know adoption from anyone it'll be a while okay now I just had a thought actually if I may um we thinking of project RS so much as a you know as a phone as a personal device that sits in our pocket so to speak um there's always room in the industrial part of the world where a module isn't so to speak a little tiny piece but it's a full robotic arm on an assembly line um I think there could be room for for Project Ara as a tool as the operating system and and brains for commercial robotics that is a Nifty idea you know attaching the SC to the robot giving it some commands you know unattaching it so no one else can mess with it or anything yeah that's a cool thought that's a cool thought definitely really cool we're always looking at things from a consumer perspective but obviously a lot of what has been good for us as consumers has been brought into uh many work rated industrial even let's say um uh private sector areas as well Project Tango is a good example of that you know they're putting it you know they've been working with NASA and putting it in you know robotics in NASA and so yeah you know he he makes a good point they've been doing it with Project Tango Google's other you know and so yeah there's definitely room outside of the consumer field for too absolutely so even if project Gara doesn't necessarily take off as it were for for people like us it could find a home in plenty of other places oh yeah definitely yeah all right well and with that we'll go ahead and close the book on this particular topic for this week we hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Friday debate podcast by Android authority our first episode so for those of you who are listening to us for the first time which is pretty much all of you because this is our first episode thank you so much for being there with us I want to extend a quick thank you to all of our hosts and I will also say if you want to find Andrew grush on Andrew authority.com you can find his writing all over the place and as lead editor he does have his hand in a lot of bowls for a lot of people who are writing the content for our website you can find Jonathan Feist on Twitter at J Feist one JF s T1 and if you want to find some really random pontifications you can go over to Joe H's uh Twitter that is that Joe Hindi that is all three words put together spelled the way you think that Joe Hindi h i n d y you can find me at Josh salute as you may know already and you can also find me on Instagram and you can probably find our other guys on Instagram and you can find those links down in our description if you are watching this on YouTube or if you are on iTunes or Stitcher where you will find this podcast currently we're working on other syndications of course and it's only matter of time before we'll get there discuss all of our topics at our Android authority forums and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel Android authority of course remember everybody that we are your source for all things Android and thank you very much for watching and listening to the Friday debate podcast we'll see you guys next weekhello everybody and welcome to the Friday debate podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every week this week we have our first ever episode so if you are one of our first listeners on this podcast thank you so much for listening and I want to extend a quick thanks to our uh guests here I am of course Joshua vagara from Android authority what's going on everybody and I am your host every single week as we take a topic that we otherwise have on the androidauthority.com website for the Friday debate and we talk its ears off or as I said in our description for our pilot episode if you have hopefully enjoyed it we beat the proverbial dead horse on this topic uh but nonetheless uh welcome to all of you who are here and uh before we even get started I want to go down the line and introduce our great guests for this week I'm going to go ahead and name off uh the three people we have on the panel this week we'll start off with our lead editor Andrew grub hey everyone uh the name is Andrew grush or for those here at Team AA I'm actually better known as gushy uh some of you may already be familiar with my writing on Android authority I was also on last week's pilot for those who watched it for those new to the show I'm the US senior editor like Josh mentioned uh basically that means I do a combination of writing editing and I help with the day-to-day management of the website I've been with Android Authority for about two and a half years now and this is absolutely the best job I've ever had in my life nice and uh like I also put in the description from from the pilot episode from CES 2015 uh grush is also the architect of the Friday debate topic that you may be reading on our website so the topics that uh are occurring not only on the website but in the Friday debate podcast itself are going to be the work of grush and on some level me but also the rest of our team looking for a great topic to bring to you guys let's go ahead and move on over to another writer from our team Jonathan Feist well hello thank you how's everybody doing good Jonathan Feist I'm one of the writers with the team here uh of course we cover all the news coverage I've got the evening shift so you'll see me uh you know first thing in the morning if you're in the UK or Asia and you know middle of the night if you're in the United States um one of my favorite things around here is every Thursday I do an Android customization post uh just a little bit of you know tidbits tips and tricks on how to customize your device and you know so far we've been avoiding the root topics but roots coming up soon so stay tuned very nice and Alo Jonathan has a uh uh what's the term I'm looking for here a uh not a pet name but we have a nice little name that we have for him last name Feist so we call him feisty also so um and now and then of course we have one of our YouTubers our app guy on over here Joseph Hindi hey everybody uh I'm Joe hindy the the Android authority app guy I am also the apps editor over at Android authority I do all the app lists and app reviews and video game reviews um like gushy said said man this is the the best job ever because I literally get paid to play video games and uh I know a lot of people are envious about that and um a fun little fun fact here with this I will have co-hosted or been a guest on every single Android Authority weekly show and I remain the only YouTuber to do that so oh super happy to be here oh nice it's well it's really great to have you guys on here by the way I was about to say uh having John here is going to be really awesome we're going to have probably this particular group uh on most week but we will have some ring guests in and out as time goes on but nonetheless we are here on our first episode and I'm really happy to have Joe here cuz he and I actually have done a lot of YouTube videos together where T typically when I have to do the editing for it I have to have that bleep button ready from time to time but nonetheless we are of course here at the Friday debate and let's go ahead and jump into our topic let's not even waste any time here is what grush had for this week's Friday debate topic that you will be able to read today on Friday of course and it has to do with Project Ara with AA Project Ara that is expected to arrive in Puerto Rico in a pilot program later this year Aura is finally almost ready for prime time or is it do we think that modular phones can find success in the market I think that's where most of our discussion is going to come from but if it isn't ready for the market to find success what will hold it back all right so what we're looking at here is uh basically a phone that you can put together on the Fly and you can take out parts you can put parts back into it and it's a different take on what a smartphone can be very very uh very similar to what a computer can be but it's starting off in Puerto Rico and I know Andrew already said that he had a couple of uh pieces of information about why Puerto Rico was that place sure okay so uh really Puerto Rico might seem odd choice at first but the biggest thing is it's a US Territory so that means uh it's a perfect test Market because uh you know it's still under the FCC guy you know regulations and stuff and so that means that uh they can kind of prepare it for the US market in a limited setting uh and beyond that actually Puerto Rico is a mobile First Nation meaning that uh the majority of people are using uh smartphones to get onto the internet and so that makes it you know a prime target uh and you know it's because of the way Puerto Rico is set up uh they're actually going to be delivering Parts uh instead of having a online Channel initially they're going to deliver it through food trucks actually they're going to have a set of food trucks they're going to go around and let people try out the uh products Hands-On then buy products and heck they're even going to have 3D printers in the back so they're going to be able to customize it on the Fly and uh Puerto Rico just really works out well for that uh not to mention uh Puerto Rico has really good relationships as far as with uh shipping across the world so modular developers from all over are going to be able to easily get parts there and so that's kind of the uh reason why they chose Puerto Rico it might sound like an odd choice but it makes sense no okay well food trucks that's mhm wow are you going to be able to get food with them or is it literally no well obviously they're not really food trucks but you know the you know the style of food trucks that you have in that you know those countries where the come you know it's going to be one of those basically except for it's going to be technology okay well yeah Puerto Rico does make quite a bit of sense but let's go ahead and get into our actual discussion modular phones and specifically uh Project Aura uh let's start off with uh Joe over there let's see what you have to say about modular phones and what it might mean for the smartphone industry um when I think of like modular phones I think of like desktop PCS like what desktop PCS are to computing is essentially what I think Project R would be to smartphones where like people you know it's not I don't think it's going to be super popular um I think it might hit the mainstream but I don't think it's going to have the kind of growth that we see with um things like uh you know oh I'm sorry I'm blanking here it's uh midnight where I am so I'm a little blank right now but uh am I still am I still in the call yeah no you're here all right cool making sure cuz like yeah everything blinked out for a second sorry um but no I think it's going to be something like desktop computers where you know the the people who are going to use Project Ara are people who are Tinkers you know people who really want something more powerful something upgradeable uh you know something that they can keep around for years and years and years as opposed to you know most people who are going to upgrade every couple of years like they do with their laptops um I do think that the thing that's going to hold it back though is Android as in like the operating system because uh in most cases Android is made for the specific phone that it runs on at like at a kernel level like uh all the drivers the camera drivers the you know the CPU stuff and all that stuff is made specifically for that one Android device and if they want Aura to you know you know to to be something that people keep for years and years and years they're going to have to start coming out with like a version of Android that's like a desktop operating system that has all of those drivers already there and they can just install it on anything and uh so I think that's the that's going to be the big thing for for it that's you know I might be way off base I'm not 100% certain on that but well I was going to I was going to put out this notion like doesn't the ecosystem sort of already um allow for um sort of the in and outs of an operating system along with the processor because we have processors like the Snapdragon series that uh can be outfitted with every single band and it also would be able to take on pretty much any Android iteration um if as long as we don't use uh particular types of processors that require a very specific type of Kernel don't you think that maybe just having the Qualcomm basis uh enough uh be enough for Android to to really survive on this project R ecosystem oh no definitely like we're heading in that direction already you know with the like you said with the Qualcomm processors that have all of the um all the various radio bands built into it but you know uh I we were talking about it before the show you know like uh in the chats about how you know like there's going to be the K1 uh the K1 processor for Project R right that's true so yeah so we have nvidia's K1 and then Snapdragon and you know it requires two different sets of you know two different sets of software so you know in order to you know switch one out and put one in you know it would essentially require someone to reinstall Android unless Android were able you know to be run on both you know no matter which one you installed on it would still work just fine kind of like you know how you do with Windows now where you can install it on AMD or Intel it doesn't matter because you know the basic code is there for both of them and I think that's something that Android's going to have to do uh with so many different you know especially with stuff like cameras and then you know at least two different kinds of process and you know all the various Hardware that goes into these things you know it's going to have to come to that point where it's going to be like installing a desktop OS where it doesn't matter what's in Project AA it's still going to boot and it's still going to run yeah and and I think that's going to be the you know the biggest hurdle although you know if it's getting this close to being released it's probably something they've already been working on anyway yeah they have okay um yeah how about you gry what how do how do you feel about uh maybe one day using a phone that is a a conglomeration of pieces well as a computer nerd who still builds his own you know PC rigs uh I absolutely love the idea uh but first I I kind of want to address some of the things that uh that Joe said uh first of all uh yes I can see it being appealing to uh the PC type you know who likes to build their own stuff but actually that's not what Google's really going for uh ideally if you look at like their website and stuff they keep talking about how it's they want to use it to reach you know the next 5 billion you know that's their big Mantra and uh the idea is that you know someone who doesn't have a lot of money could uh you know buy the base unit for around 50 bucks and then uh it would basically just come with a a basic processor a screen that would be low res and just everything needed to get started and then as they saved up money they could slowly but surely add on things and that's they're actually probably marketing more towards Emerging Markets initially uh and so that's you know and I'm not sure how much success they'll find in that uh it really comes down to how easy they make it and actually that leads to something else he was talking about uh it comes down to Android because even with Windows uh you know you have to if you bring in a new part you know you have to still there's driver issues there's installation issues sometimes you run into troubleshooting is Android going to be able to adjust to that well enough and uh you know they are working on that they have a special version of Android L that they're using as the basis that allows for hot swapping of Parts but I'm just not sure if Android is designed to handle this and I'm sure they're thinking about that but uh so basically what I'm saying is that the the aim that they're going for is the emerging markets and I'm just not sure if it's going to hit there but I do think it has some potential for uh the nerd types uh you know it's just it comes down to Logistics I'm not sure if they can pull off you know making the uh Android work well enough for this kind of you know platform well I mean that Emerging Markets uh comment is really interesting we're going to come back to that but I do want to get uh feisty's uh uh thoughts on Project Aura in general what what do you think uh this particular ecosystem might have to offer us well jumping off of what the other guys have said already you know exactly what the operating system and Android itself being the limitation of course Google is keeping tabs on everything and it looks like they're going to control all of the parts through possibly the play store or another Outlet like that uh so I'm not so much worried about that the you know the custom OS version of L like you were saying that uh would pull it all together uh but I think the real key thing here that will make or break Project Ara is the hot swapability uh obviously it's going to have it which is is a positive without it I I cannot imagine people wanting to you know shut down their device each time so that they could swap a piece and and move forward that hot swapability will be a key factor and you know the the tech crowd that's interested in this device that I think is going to be pretty much the same crowd as you know those interested in the Raspberry Pi device and the ardu kits and you know those things are great devices they're a ton of fun but I really think they're Limited in scope it's not uh not exactly a general public that's going out and buying those things so I have my concerns over ARA yeah I think I might agree with you uh John because I think one of the one of the main aspects of the whole modular phone uh type deal is that well I mean customization is going to be very big for this particular device and uh like people have been reporting on already uh the whole customization process for it kind of takes on a motomaker feel and that's kind of great because motomaker really made the Moto X one of the best phones over the last couple years but the problem with making it into a modular sense is that well who knows what type of modules we're going to even have in order to create the phone that we want and um who knows what will happen when third parties kind of get in on this will everything come from just one manufacturer and even then what modules are going to be made available because from uh from what we've already seen so far in these prototypes is that we have things like the Tegra K1 which actually sounds pretty awesome even though the X1 was just uh was just announced and that would be even better but uh we have 720p displays and whatnot and coming off of Andrew's side of things I do think that it will become a nice Emerging Market product but I don't think that's where it's going to really I think it's going to greatly evolve from that I mean when we talk about price point uh everyone's saying that a modular phone could be low priced but if you want to go above and Beyond just how much are we going to have to pay for these different for these different uh Parts well if I can jump back in there u i I cannot stop thinking about Google Glass you know the you know the the pilot project for that one you know Explorer Edition was still $1,500 and you know you might think that Project Ara and Project Glass have about the same chances of survival and well glass is essentially being shut down here here for a little bit yeah and it's it's nice that it's going to be in Puerto Rico I do think that's a good thing because you know that that kind of makes it seem like uh that it's going to be for emerging markets but I really don't think that it's ever going to stay there um people there's there's going to be phone Envy no matter what but um like as far as these these these modules are concerned we haven't seen too many of them yet what are the kind what what would a phone uh look like with all the modules that you would want to have in there we already have a lot of examples in this phone market of these high-end devices but what of these parts would you mix and match together let's let's start off with Android on that one well as far as uh you can mix and match just about anything there's different sizes and it goes onto uh the back and there's a magnetic force that keeps them in place I think the front uses pins but the back is where most of the customization happens and uh there's going to be initially around 20 to 40 different modules and uh it's not just going to be like processors and RAM there's also going to be like different kinds of sensors you know uh things that could be specialized for workplaces things that could be specialized for home use and uh you know that Bas which is what gets me concerned how they're going to make all that work but uh yeah basically they're going to allow you to swap any kind of part and any basically there's no limits to what a uh uh what someone can develop for it which is a fascinating concept but uh once again Logistics I think is going to get in the way how are they going to manage all this how are they going to make sure everything's working right you know like uh feisty did mention that you you know they're going to do this through a storefront at some point which is true but even so just testing all of it for all the different configurations because you have you know let's say at some point you have a 100 different modules they're going to have to test each of these in different scenarios with different pairings and I just I think it's going to be a mess I think it's a great idea but I think it's going to be a mess yeah I mean uh that that was that was something that I kept thinking of while we were talking about this was just what will what will the other manufacturers have to say and will project AR be strictly a Google project that isn't isn't isn't really outsourced out you know what I mean they're allowing anyone but uh the the frames initially are going to be built by Google so the you know the main frame the spiral 2 was the the newest one that's going to be by Google but the modules can be by anyone uh but what I'm really you know you were talking about how uh you could see it moving into you know outside of the Emerging Markets which is true but uh the big concern there is uh how carriers will react and how will they play a part are they going to get on board where they're designing their own modules I could see Verizon doing that having giant Verizon logos everywhere on the back of the modules oh jesz God that'd be horrible the Verizon bloat wear module yep oh my oh God God that'd be terrible how great would that be though if the if all of the bloat wear from like 18th TI of Verizon was just on one little module that you could just you could just pluck out oh dud yeah good luck that I just had a great video idea if they do do that we have to do the smash the Verizon bloat module video I'll do it I'll volunteer do it I have a sledgehammer I think people would really love that I think that'd be great but I I I I love I love where that's going like the that's the thing that I can't get out of my head when I keep thinking about Project Ara is they just it there's so much room for creativity and creation but there's also so much room for regulation and I I'm really scared of what you're right these carriers would do with project area that's where I think the major Pitfall like it they're not going to like it huh you don't think so not at all I mean unless they can find a way to control it and I'm not sure it kind of comes down to what Google you know allows them to do or doesn't allow them to do but the idea of having to you know certify all these parts and make sure they're approved is Verizon it's going to be bad for the carriers like Verizon but it's going to be bad for consumers too I think in a way because uh you know are uh is Verizon going to have lockouts where only certain modules work that they've approved for their Network because you know Verizon is one you know and so is at& they're all are uh where they like to test everything very you know vigorously and if it doesn't meet their standards and so are they going to allow any old module to work with it that's where it gets you know at first I'd say into the very foreseeable future probably 5 10 years I think it's going to be an unlocked only thing I don't think carriers are going to even be involved yeah I mean going to be a lot I imagine people are going to have just like the skeleton available cuz that might be all they can afford at the moment yeah and then just kind of put things in little by little um Joe any anything to weigh in on here about availability rather of Project Ara given carriers and whatnot uh I think I think gush's pretty much right I think it's going to be one of those unlocked things it's going to be just like the Nexus was when it first came out you know the Nexus one was only unlocked you could only really buy that you know from Google's website and then you know it wasn't until what was it like the Nexus S that you could actually buy it on a carrier um I I think it's going to be exactly the same thing with Project R I think it's going to be one of those things where you have to buy it straight from Google you're going to have to buy the parts at least the initial Parts straight from Google um and then as it evolves it'll start falling into more hands you start getting it in more places but no I think Rush is absolutely correct on this on that one excuse me so I want to if you don't mind I I wouldn't mind posing a question actually yeah any of you guys seriously just like Chim in whenever you wish so you know I I I've heard you all say hey it's a cool idea you know for the nerd side of me to be able to build Parts how much would you be willing to pay for such a you know for such a thing I mean what would you consider like for the bass uh for the processors I mean how much to build the phone you want how much would you be willing to S this requires a lot of knowledge as to how much these parts are even requireed how much true I'm just saying you know ballpark I mean do you feel that you know it that to build a complete phone should it be pretty close to what you're paying for a flagship or are you willing to pay you know a th000 plus I mean yeah that's yeah that's really interesting how about um how about with the price that you kind of put out there what what what are the modules you would put in that hopefully create that price point how about that um you know like from my perspective it would depend on on the benefits because you know you go and dump $1,500 into a desktop and you're going to be able to play like the latest games at you know Flawless 1080 sometimes even you know 2K 4K at you know 30 60 frames per second depending you know and it's it there's value in spending that much in a desktop PC and even you know spending 20 you know $2,000 on a laptop you know there's value in that and I think the question it's not necessarily like what would you pay uh to build a project or phone but I think the better question is um what value is there in spending that much more because I know that one of the things you know as gushy mentioned like for workplace so like you know if you're a handyman and you can turn your you all right this is a horrible example I want to go with it anyway but you can turn your phone into like a Geer counter by popping in a module you know that that person would probably be able yeah I would definitely pay you know $200 for a Geer counter module but you know for me you know I'm a gamer uh all you know all Flagship Android phones currently play all of the games so you know what's the benefit to spending extra money if I'm not going to get any extra benefit from anything that's out right now yeah I think it's it's it does matter whether or not a let's say mid-range phone it doesn't cost more than current mid-range offerings and I think that's that's going to be sort of a key when it comes to whether or not this kind of ecosystem is going to be uh successful at least from the outset Feist what does a uh what does a what does a project r a phone look like for you at what price point uh see this is a tough one um I've thought about this a lot actually and there is no possible way for me to build a Project Ara device you know I would need a 14in tablet to have enough space for all of the pieces that I want nice and and I think that uh you know that speaks again to the hot swapability of the pieces however uh you know just at at Christmas time here I I picked up a few little phones I mean they were $30 a piece uh wrote about them on the site they're actually pretty good little phones and I'm using them for specific purposes you know one is an MP3 player one takes pictures you know they I've already got these cheap devices they're set to the side they're Focus driven I think if I were building a project R device I might have to buy or build more than one so that again I can have these multiple devices with with specific purpose um so that becomes a problem for me because well like you're saying price tag if every module is anywhere from you know $20 to $300 that that price tag is going to be over thousand in no time yeah I just really think that it's that the price will rocket so easily when it comes to a lot of these parts you know and and and you were talking about having different phones for different or different devices for different situations I mean isn't that the sort of the point of a modular phone however is being able to take out let's say a uh let's say you take out like oh I was thinking about in joose case you know what if he wanted to really test out an app for performance he would take out his Snapdragon 600 which costs let's say $200 and then pop in the Integra X1 that hopefully one day will come in you know and then you can really do some benchmarking on an app um you really think you would need more than one skeleton for for everything you do Feist yes absolutely I'm as is I'm already using more than one phone and they serve different purposes I mean again I'm holding down 16 different jobs okay not that many but it feels like it some days so you know you can only install so many Google accounts onto a single device and you know while one device is making a phone call you need that next device to be doing something else and then you know if you're using one device as an MP3 player it's on the other side of the room is hooked up to the stereo you're not taking calls on that uh see one device one project R device with hot swappable pieces again not for me maybe as one of my devic is even my main device oh wow I wasn't expecting that to be the way that you took it like the the the uh that's really cool though that's really cool though that you you know yourself so well as a user to be able to know that but wow that's interesting I imagine you have like example of an extreme multitasker exactly you have like you have like a phone for every little task it's like you have like I imagine you like surrounded by 10 phones right now all doing something different uh there's only six sorry only six all right how about you gushy what does a uh what what is is your price point for something like this honestly uh I'm not rich so it comes down to what I can afford but you know I would easily pay $800 or so uh maybe even a thousand if I could have enough components for where I see the potential in AA is okay so I have my Base phone it has you know a Snapdragon you know 805 810 Whatever by the time I get to it you know it has a base amount of ram 3 gigs maybe you know it has basic storage but you know I'm going to go camping this weekend let's say and so you know I'm not going to be I'm going to have an actual decent camera with me so I'm not going to be using the camera on my phone so I'm going to take that module out I'm going to put in an extra battery or so I'm going to move things around and just the ability to say hey now I have two three four days of battery life because I've loaded this thing up maybe I put in a weaker processor because I'm not going to need that but I want good battery life so if something happens I can make a call make a text uh that's really why I think AA is amazing is you know you can adjust the phone's Hardware based on your use case you know there might be time s where I need you know the best processor and I put that in or I might need more battery life or I might need a good camera and that's where I think ra will have a lot of potential for the the nerd type uh for the merging type it's going to just come down to hey I can slowly but surely update this and they're not going to want to pay a lot they're not going to need very powerful processors and I think that AA can cater to both sides yeah I think that's where the phone Envy is going to come in though you're going to have those people that are like oh I got this Snapdragon 400 I keep thinking of project Arta in terms of what I put in there will make me feel like I have a certain type of phone so let's say someone makes a motoa and and they uh they work with that and one day they're like okay um I got I got a little bit more money or I really want this boost in productivity or or or or processing power I'll throw in that Snapdragon 805 and make this a Moto X and um I I do think that that there's a lot of uh there's a lot of uh benefit to something like that I also think that um hopefully hopefully hopefully the uh the price point is going to be very reasonable depending on the parts that you get uh maybe I really think that they're going to kind of take advantage of that the fact that someone doesn't have to pay for everything right away so they can uh I guess overprice certain parts so you have to settle you know I I kind of I I'm I'm a little bit cynical like that I I'm like that sometimes where um I really feel like I have to settle for certain parts or certain things before I can really go to the upper echelon um but it's funny how you know I feel like Andrew grush uh the way that you put it that's really what Google's trying to go for is whole idea of slowly upgrading and then Google's probably listening to this right now and thinking Jonathan feice is not one of those customers that we want uh but you know so let's let's let's get a little bit creative here I want I want to know um what kind of modules do you want on your phone gush was talking about I don't really need a camera you know what what let's let's let's reach for the brass ring here what what are the things that you really want on your phone that may have been there before or is not there now um something that you really would want to put on yours uh no no expense Spar you know something I was thinking about while uh while these guys were talking was how cool would it be to have like a module that would allow you to switch like your entire Android experience from say your phone to your Smartwatch or to your you know Google Glass or something like that and be like okay well I'm done with Google Glasser right now I'm going to pop this module out stick it back in my phone and you know I have those apps and that data available to me whenever I need it and I thought that' be something I thought was I was just kind of working with it in my brain it's literally 4 minutes old but you know to have like you know have a module in my Android Wear Smartwatch pull it out put pop it in my phone you know install some apps on there do some customization on and stuff like that pop it back out you know put it back in the watch you know body you know up Project Ara wear I guess and does not roll off the tongue very easily no it doesn't but you know and just be able to customize you you know instead of you know thinking about one device that you can put everything into you know think of it more as like you have two or three devices that you can interchange everything with like you know something like what Feist would you know want just not with multiple phones but just multiple Gadgets in general like you pop out a module stick it in your car and all of a sudden you have access to your Google Play music you know stuff like that that I thought would be really kind of cool and that would be something that would spend a lot of money on feisty's probably over there like no that's too much work when I get in my car when I get when I get in my car there's already a phone there yeah that's the car phone you know it he's got one on the glued on the dashboard another one taped on the visor it pulls it down and there's the navigation the story's coming soon show you how all right I don't think I really want to know the answer to this but is there one in the bathroom too ready to go oh that's like that's like the 12 in uh Samsung Note Tablet true that's where the tablet comes into play no comment that's a great idea though being able to hot swap from one apparatus to another and I'm just trying I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a project rware would I would even look like a project Weare R whatever they want whatever they would call it I imagine it would have to be pretty big to be able to hold something like that now we're talking like 20 2050 like but when Computing finally gets that small I suppose well it wouldn't be like a permanent thing when you stick it into your phone like I'd imagine just having it pretty much the size of an LG G watch and just being able to like pop off the screen but like the screen also contains all of the circuitry underneath for the you know the storage and what have you and then when you pop it into the phone you know the phone has the RAM and the processor already so you don't need to take that with you you know you keep all that stuff in the watch and then just take the you know the removable stuff and then being able to I don't know it's just again five minutes now I've been thinking about this so but I I can't imagine it would be that big if they did it right I mean some of those modules are pretty you know freaking small it's not like these things are the size of coffee tables true and honestly that that uh even in under five minutes that already sounds like a pretty well hashed out idea it's just a matter of obviously the R&D um but let's talk about a a smartphone here Joe what's the one module you got to have on the back of that phone um or the front if you want to talk about the display that that's a really good question um given what I do with my Android devices I would want the best conceivable CPU GPU either combination or individually and I actually hope that something they do is separate them and allow us to upgrade our our GPU and CPU separately cuz that would be awesome yeah um just like a desktop but I would want the the best of the best in there because if there's anything I can't stand it's game lag especially on Android where you can't just like turn down the graphics on most games to get the frame rates up so you know like I was playing um like rip tide gb2 on my Note 3 and it stuttered once and I almost threw the damn thing against the wall because I was like no you're a Note 3 you do not do that to me so that that's what I would do you're a you're a stutter Nazi that's why like it's just like the moment you see like a little bit of stutter on like a like a touch wisting like no worst worst thing ever I I can handle it in the UI it's not so bad but you know in games it's like ah come on for real okay fair enough um okay cool well um I agree there definitely um how about uh feisty over there what's what's the one thing you need to have on the back of your aura I would actually like like a full IO panel I want USB ports I want HDMI out I want you know of course that's what feisty says well yeah you know U it's tough sometimes a lot of these phones that you know they just they don't connect to anything you know sometimes a physical connection is nice to have and for me that's a major disadvantage to a lot of android devices now again you wouldn't want to use that all the time and certainly when you're on the go it doesn't much matter but you know I spend most of my time at the house you know sitting at the office and connecting to the stereo is important connecting to an external monitor is very important to me there you go that was what I was going to ask so what exact what things exactly you're going to be uh connecting to here and you said the Monitor and stereo and whatnot but if you have like a full panel with like I with like USB ports and whatnot are you transferring data back and forth a lot or is is that what the idea is there uh well there is some data of course we do a lot of screenshots and having to transfer those but I mean Wireless is easy enough for those um uh specifically I think of the media I'm always listening to music um I'm surprised you can't even hear it in the background right now I'm kidding I turned it off I turned which phone is which phone is uh is playing that right now actually I find the LG devices are have some fairly decent now I would love High Fidelity that would be very nice um and there again would be another chip that I would want to go with that is is you know I I don't want just plain old MP3 playback I want some high-end lossless audio Flack right well I get a lot of flack over that no sorry bad joke very nice puns are punny it's uh it's interesting you bring up the audio part because really the one of the modules that you're going to be having to put on the back of there might be a speaker grill for example and what I noticed at least on the front of these is um you know this ecosystem is going to take on an identity of its own there's really only room for a for a screen up front you can't really find space for like a boom sound speaker front-facing you know unless I'm wrong uh that's actually uh looking at the skeleton they did design it so you could have a smaller screen on there that you could have room for actually that was in one of the early presentation slides so it is possible okay who knows what they're going to put on the front though but that I'm going to save that for for for after we hear from gruchy because I it's great that you said that because I really that's where I would put one of my Most Wanted modules but I I'll get into that after we hear what gush's aurura would look like what's the one module you got to have wait hold on one second before uh before G starts I know exactly what module feisty wants on the back of his phone a whole second phone hey perfect one yeah have one phone turn the damn thing over and there's a whole another phone with fresh stuff right there brilliant nice by Aces yeah oh man that's true all right sorry gushy Bud go ahead oh it's all good um let's see uh maybe a taser hey we're thinking outside of the box a little bit why not who doesn't want a taser no I mean uh in all seriousness for me batteries uh the more battery life the better coming from an Nexus 5 and having to carry around tons of uh external battery packs all the time I mean I I think I had like four at CES uh oh I remember yeah that was yeah I had like everywhere I kept plugging them in and so coming from that uh batteries would be very important to me but you know just thinking outside of myself uh you know just wanted to make the point uh some of the stuff I could this was just floating around my head when we were talking uh just stuff for like Health too like a glucose monitor for example you know built into the phone you know that would be awesome a man after my own heart gushy knows I that's that's why yeah that's where came kind of thought's kissing up to me right now no it just kind of popped into my head I was like Hey that would be kind of cool listeners for those of for those of you who do not know already I've said this many times on our Channel on YouTube I am a type 2 diabetic so I've been very much into the health portion of Android as of late uh but yeah that's uh definitely I'm in full agreement on that I didn't even think about that yeah just all those kind of sensors you know there's all sorts of Health sensors that could be built in you know people who have special you know who either have special Health needs or special education you know there's a lot of room for that oh yeah for sure um yeah like a glucose meter I'm trying to think of what some other ones would be like a like a legit heart rate monitor but I mean you can't really something that's not the cheap little yeah junky ones that Samsung gives us yeah exactly um yeah no one said like fingerprint monitor I fingerprint scanner rather or anything like that um but yeah Iris scanner an iris scanner that would be so tight but you have to turn the phone around and then look into it true yeah they they'd have to have room on the front for that or something you know yeah definitely I love I think I think you you won with Taser though I feel yeah taser would be awesome I mean who doesn't want a taser just yeah yeah I just imagine like some like 21-year-old like club hopping like girl like walking out of a club like hold on Becky this guy's F me and turn her phone around and just jab a guy in the ribs with it turn back around talk to again but you know who be like dude Spies spies would be able to like do all kinds of really awesome stuff with project it'd be the James Bond phone exactly you have like a laser that can cut things and like you go to take a picture and it shoots pepper spray stuff like that didn't they have a taser phone one time though wasn't it like the Matrix phone like when taser phone I'm trying to remember that was a while back I remember covering that yeah it was yeah there was one actually it was the phone from The Matrix wasn't it the second Matrix I'm trying to remember the the you know the Matrix of the movie right and then yeah there was really a there was a iPhone case though or something or it was some I think it was an iPhone case that really exists that had a taser built into it yeah that I remember reading about a while back okay well that's fine so it's been done technically um batteries gushy that you mentioned um one one report that I that I read was saying that when you able to take out when when the battery gets down low um this the skeleton or rather the the the the actual driver CPU of the of the project Rhone will be able to draw power from the battery that's about to die so that you have enough time to remove it and then put another one in yep um that sounds pretty awesome I just got to say but I mean it's just another okay one day we're going to talk about this I'm sure it's going to be a Friday debate topic but I'm really getting sick of all of these different arounds that all these companies have when really the main problem we have is batteries are really not where they should be right now it's like the one piece of a phone that hasn't really evolved over the last or or they're too worried about thinness you know and uh you know not that we want brick phones but I think most of us would be willing to sacrifice a little bit of space for a bigger battery oh yeah no definitely um I have had this conversation with a lot of people you know across the the Blogger industry where they say like oh the biggest problem with Android is you know the Oe skins or the biggest problem with Android or the cameras aren't as good as iOS I'm like no the biggest problem with Android and the one that everybody complains about is the fact that these things die after 16 hours mhm you know with with pretty medum or like two hours if you have a Nexus oh oh a one-year-old Nexus I can imagine that yeah the battery is not so yeah it's not so hot anymore it's starting to it's starting to have lots of issues let's just put it that way I love my Nexus 5 but it's starting to have some problems I mean I remember the Galaxy Nexus was so bad that Sprint was giving out ex they were giving out extended batteries for free like I I got one they were like oh yeah you know you can have this extended battery for free and they just sent it and it fit in the original shell and everything like but that you know I totally agree like you know a lot of people have a lot of problems with Android but the the biggest problem that everybody has is hey this battery sucks yeah like no matter like I have an Nvidia Shield I got it 4 days ago I can kill the thing in 10 hours flat and it's got like I think it's over five ,000 milliamp hours in the battery I think it's even larger than that and I can still kill it in 10 hours and that's just it's absurd yeah I can imagine people with a with AA phones having a specific pocket in their bag with just a bunch of battery modules that would be me we need a module that actually will accept all of the other different types of batteries you know we've all got the extra batteries from our previous phones and previous lives and you know be able to use those instead of having to buy new on would be nice that be kind of cool actually that would be kind of cool it's a fat it's a fat module to be able to put in like a D battery or like a n battery off to Kickstarter we go well I guess for me uh what I was going to say was um yeah the the module that I would really want would be on the front and that's because I have been very very open about the fact that I miss old form factors and one of them happens to be the phone that has a fraking keyboard I knew this was coming exactly cuz back when we were at CES now this is going to be a little bit controversial but I was actually saying that I was very close to just going to a local store and picking up the new BlackBerry because I I had the original Blackberry Bold because that keyboard was just amazing back in the day and now they have a newer version and I can talk about Blackberry right now because you can sideload Android on there so okay so I'm not really betraying everybody right now but really that that keyboard is kind of compelling to me and um like I was telling the guys right before our podcast I actually about to go through a full review process and uh Vlog about my my adventures with the original Google phone the G1 and this is the one where the screen literally slid out of the way and there was a full qued keyboard um if I could get a screen like that on my AA phone I would love that but um if I could maybe maybe put a little bit of uh a little bit of space on the bottom in order to put like a full Cordy keyboard on there um let's just say of blackberry quality then I think that would be really great I yeah go ahead I was going to say uh on the subject of like the hinging screens uh did any of you guys ever use the HTC G2 the the successor to the G1 mhm right it had that really unique like Z hinge that like you know yeah was kind of odd could you imagine that like on a project AA phone being able to have like a whole second row of modules that you could just slide out and pop back in oh man that would be crazy yeah take the keyboard out and just have a whole second row of of all the of more module space I know Josh was talking about the screen that literally slid out of the way and I was like well what if you just put more modules behind it like and still have the screen just kind of slide over and I mean that phone would be the size of a Bible but you know it would be interesting I think yeah you know if our phones are getting big enough as it is you know and I really don't imagine that there aren't going to be people out there who who just stack on stack on stack modules you know and um who knows maybe people maybe like I said Kickstarter let's just get over the kickstarter and someone's going to make a module that will add another panel for modules or something like that I think it's that kind of openness of modules that will kind of make or break the the Emerging Markets I think of China for example and this may be a bad example and I'm going here but uh you look at all of the copyright violations that that happen in China and I think that would be a huge huge a major factor for you know Project Ara moving forward uh we can get 3D printed modules here you can get the Verizon logo you can get a picture of your kitten your puppy your child uh but I imagine that over in a lot of the Asian markets uh you would get the Hello Kitty modules you would get the appropriately the Transformer modules and I think those could you know again the openness and to be able to downgrade maybe the specifications to bring the price down but but that kind of personaliz I think will go big in a lot of those markets I do agree yeah there might even be modules that are just made to look you know it's yeah uh they actually talked about that a little bit plus uh they're going to make it so you can pretty much customize like any module you can have the back customized you know it different what what did they refer that to as again a shell the shell right the shell for the module or what I'm trying to remember well yeah there the shell is the or the frame where the uh endoskeleton is the actual thing that all the pieces go into I can't remember exactly what they're called I think they just call mod there's no name for the actual modules I'm trying I swear I saw this term where there was there it's it's three things it's the it's the exoskeleton the module and then the thing that goes on top of the module to give it its look that was that was the part I couldn't I can't remember what the the term was um but in any case I I do completely agree that that's going to happen one day I it's only a matter of time before something like this is going to turn into a commercialization type of deal and um which uh you know I kind of uh you guys got me thinking uh as far as if they're having Kickstarter and all these places people throwing out modules Google's probably going to have to if they're going to make this work they're probably going to have to have some kind of like DRM or you know some kind of like digital Rights Management that you know only ones that have been approved by Google will work because or else Android's not going to be able to handle all that you knowless what I was getting at though was they're goingon to have to yeah yeah if it goes through Google and everything has to be so to speak DRM or approved for copyright decency but will that limit things I think it'll really block things especially in the Emerging Markets es you know if if you look at a you know Disney properties U you know you go to the Disney Store and you buy a baseball cap it's got Mickey on the top you pay a premium for that and premium is exactly the opposite of what these Emerging Markets need yeah and those companies are going to be the ones who will be able to Market up like that's that's uh you pay a little bit more for something that's got Mickey's face on it or God forbid Frozen and um you know something like that you know just you got to pay just a little bit more to just have that branding on there and then you know it's it's not a topic we have to get into right now but you know just imagine what ARA would look like for kids and you know what all of these parents are going to have to deal with in order to create these phones that their kids will enjoy using because of what is on top of them The Branding and all of the the the the the the the stuff that these companies do to them to make them more not say kid-friendly but the same would go for even adults like what uh imagine somebody with like um logo goes on the back or just just any company could probably make just their own ways of making some of creating a module or whatever cover goes on top of it and it's um it's it's uh Project Ara I think to me is going to be a very nice way of shaking up the system but whereas originally I don't know if everyone remembers this but originally this was a was it Indiegogo or was it Kickstarter that this originally was um it was yeah no project no before project AA there was a company that was oh you're talking about foam blocks foam blocks there it is uh they were just basically they had a concept idea uh and then uh Motorola because they were the ones that were behind this originally uh they came out and talked to phone block said hey actually we have this we've been working on this for a while and uh they weren't going to announce uh Project Ara until you know I think it was still six months or so out from being announced but since uh phone blocks had already given them the perfect introduction basically they started teaming up and since then phone blocks has been basically working with uh uh Google now since you know Motorola is no longer part of Google uh and uh they've been doing a lot of updates they you know you go to their site and they'll have all these updates for what you know motor I mean sorry Google is doing with Project Ara and so yeah it started with foone blocks but it wasn't it wasn't like an open source project it was just more like a concept they were like hey this is what we think would be cool and they wanted to get people interested in the idea they were trying to generate and that's why like I remember when we first covered covered this we were like that's a pipe dream that will never happen happen but then all of a sudden motor roua came out and said hey we're doing it I was like wow okay I guess this can happen true and what came with it was the backing and also all the pitfalls of being part of a of a huge corporation is what I'm trying to say and uh you know it's uh it would be really interesting to see where this comes out do you guys think that um I mean if it's going to come out in Puerto Rico then what's to stop any of us even from just getting one from there and going going straight to the source and go ahead and do like a preliminary review on it I'm sure a lot of people in the outlets and media Outlets are going to go ahead and find a way to get it from PTO Rico you know and I'm you know uh who uh we're going to get our we're going to get a pretty good look at it here in 2015 I think eBay for the win yeah right well and I'm I'm sure they'll probably be pretty tight on the regulations like you know kind of like they were with Google Glass you're not technically supposed to resell it you know I'm sure they'll do some of that yeah definitely you know but that it won't stop people from getting their hands on it mhm yeah um okay so I guess um I guess the final question that I want to pose here because we live in a world right now in the smartphone let let's say Android space where we basically have the incumbent is the way we we'll say it all of these big companies that are here Samsung LG and whatnot do you think that creating an ecosystem like a project or a ecosystem is going to change the way that all of these companies move forward with the way that they create smartphones or do you think this is going to be an there's going to be a Mass adoption of this type of uh this type of ecosystem um I think it's going to be the sorry little fim there um I think that oems are probably going to end up manufacturing parts for Aura assuming it does get a hold in you know in the mobile industry because that can be you know that could be a savior for some like you know Samsung is on the fall according to their sales numbers HTC's you know been down so many times it's like they got mud stomped or something and you know HTC you know manufacturing parts for project AA could be another way for them to get back into the mobile industry without having to come out with a phone that beats the iPhone or a Samsung phone in sales every year so um and I know that that was something that was I I think it was vaguely discussed when this whole thing first started happening was you know that that there were going to be uh oems that you know bought into the Project Ara premise and I think that's something that's going to happen if project starts taking off you know there's just another way of getting revenue for them okay uh feisty you don't think that we're going to see like a like a Samsung modular phone anytime in the future do you think that they're they're they're going to be like how Joe said they're just going to create the parts and kind of sort of piggyback on the success of this ecosystem hopefully if it is successful am I allowed to say yes and no okay expl so well okay getting the humor out of the way talking you use the name Samsung who knows what they're going to build they might build six different versions but anyways um project teasing oh no yeah I can certainly see a lot of the companies getting involved in it and possibly putting out a module or two um but I actually think that Project Ara will work backwards um we're going to see the third party people come in with some great ideas for modules and then the Samsung's HTC's and stuff are going to not build their own module versions but just build these things into their own phones I think that's kind of where it'll go H so a bit of a mixture of the two absolutely yeah that'd be pretty interesting what if what if there's a uh what what if a phone came out that just had one little area for one module that you can change in and out to just add something to what is already existing um that might be one way of looking at it um gushy uh yeah uh they both uh both Joe and feisty made some really good points uh I don't think that it it comes down to how successful it is but uh yeah there's going to be CopyCats in fact uh none of you may know this uh and some of you might uh there already is a copycat project in the works uh from ZTE called the uh Ecom mobus I believe it's called see one more time it's called uh it's zte's I believe it's eom mobus I think it's or mobus I'm not 100% sure on the pronunciation of it but it's zte's take on Project Ara and it's they haven't shown really much they just talked about it basically and so you're going to see I think you're going to see the the Chinese companies uh make clones uh if they think that they can push this especially if it starts taking off in the Emerging Markets you don't think China these Chinese companies are going to want to get a piece of that pie and they're not going to want to work together they don't uh and so you're going to see you're going to see all of them you're going to see Oppo you're going to see uh you know you're going to see Huawei you're going to see all these companies making their clones I don't think the big boys Samsung LG I don't think they will initially uh I could see them getting involved with modules but I don't know if they'd want to do that because that would dilute from you know their core stuff I I believe that feisty has the right angle I could see them taking you know hey this module's really cool let's throw this on our phone you know I see them taking that route more and actually uh Josh you made a good point I could see there being you know with they control it say hey okay well there's one little area where you can we have 15 different things you can swap into that one spot yeah you know you can have either a heart rate monitor or a fingerprint scanner or exactly or you know an extra battery or whatever you know yeah and I could see you know I could see that but I don't I don't see Samsung or any of the the bigger players getting involved but I do see that I do see the Chinese and even the Indian companies uh I do see them jumping in uh especially if it's proved successful in the Emerging Market yeah definitely and if there's anywhere that you're seeing some real I guess may maybe the word is not quite Innovation maybe that word is a little strong but if you want to see some real creativity then yeah we have seen quite a bit coming out of the Chinese market I agree with that um I also think what what I was thinking was what if the exoskeleton was created by a particular manufacturer that brought with it certain features that you then added on to with the modules that more or less are interchangeable no matter what skeleton you have I think it would be hard to uh convince uh the Manu you know Samsung and all the other manufacturers to uh play nice to one standard cuz what's in it for them you know they won't be able to control it uh they won't be able to decide what modules work what don't I I don't think they would uh just like carriers I don't think they're going to want to play ball to that level yeah that's true I do agree with you there it's kind of a cynical point of view but I really do think that has a lot of Merit sorry I would hope to think that they could all come into one standard I mean I guess they've done it in the PC industry to an extent perhaps yeah what were you saying Feist uh I was just going to say U you know grush is saying that these guys are not likely to play well together is Google the competition are they going to play nice with Project Ara in the first place yeah yeah no that was H that was one of the points I I brought up way earlier at the beginning was you know having Android you know work in such a manner that you know you can do the hot swapping and all that stuff um if it were built to do that um what exactly could Google do to stop them from not playing nice you know cuz it it would you know Android would Boot and work on anything as long as the drivers were already in there so you know it wouldn't matter whether or not they wanted to play nice because the software would already be compatible you know just just like Windows is or just like Linux is you know you can you know if you can install if you can install it on anything then you know you don't need anybody to play nice it's just there for people to use whenever which is like I said earlier that's why it's it's going to be a logistics nightmare uh they I'm not for sure how they're going to regulate it but Google's going to figure out a way to keep them from doing certain things and it's that's where I think it's going to run into a lot of what make or break is how they're how they handle it how they work with manufacturers how they work with module developers we've seen a little bit and Google's been very open with this project so far but uh it's just a it's really a a massively ambitious project I'm still not convinced that it's feasible long term I I I know it's coming out soon technically but as far as truly getting out in large numbers I don't know I still think it's quite a ways off yeah I think I think really that's that's a good that's a good point on uh consensus there is like we we got to see it in the wild first before we can make any real judgments on it but obviously speculation is speculation and that's exactly what we do here at the Friday debate um but uh you know like I said we we're we're uh we're discussing Project Ara here and I just wanted to open up the panel one last time before we went ahead and said goodbye to our our listeners here thank you so much for listening to our first episode of this podcast all of our guys Over Here Andrew Joe and John um any last thoughts on Project Aura in general um no sorry it's almost 1:00 in the morning I'm brain dead right now perfectly fine we did like I said talk the ears off of this thing so I'm sure that uh if we didn't have any that's perfectly fine how about you guys Andrew and John I think we're headed the right direction here uh you know Project R it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun if nothing else uh certainly cly the the modular design and the ability to get in at hopefully a lower price point and then build it up from there and and survive through upgrades you know bring in the new processor so that you can support you know the newer operating systems and you hopefully keep that exos skeleton through a few different iterations of Android I think it's along the right tracks um I just as gushy said I think the logistics might kill this poor thing yeah um you know basically what feisty said uh I feel that uh they're heading in the right direction I think it's a really ambitious project at one point I wasn't for sure if they could do anything with it and they're getting there uh they're heading in the right direction but I think that uh I on one hand the PC industry has been doing this forever and it's been working but uh Android's a whole different Ballpark and I'm just not convinced that without some massive work I think we're not there uh you know maybe by the you know three or four iterations of Android from now maybe they will develop that but I think we're still 5 years off before ARA could really be what it needs to be a game changer as it work yeah exactly I think it's just going to be one of those little hey cool did you hear of that they're doing this with ARA but as far as any major you know adoption from anyone it'll be a while okay now I just had a thought actually if I may um we thinking of project RS so much as a you know as a phone as a personal device that sits in our pocket so to speak um there's always room in the industrial part of the world where a module isn't so to speak a little tiny piece but it's a full robotic arm on an assembly line um I think there could be room for for Project Ara as a tool as the operating system and and brains for commercial robotics that is a Nifty idea you know attaching the SC to the robot giving it some commands you know unattaching it so no one else can mess with it or anything yeah that's a cool thought that's a cool thought definitely really cool we're always looking at things from a consumer perspective but obviously a lot of what has been good for us as consumers has been brought into uh many work rated industrial even let's say um uh private sector areas as well Project Tango is a good example of that you know they're putting it you know they've been working with NASA and putting it in you know robotics in NASA and so yeah you know he he makes a good point they've been doing it with Project Tango Google's other you know and so yeah there's definitely room outside of the consumer field for too absolutely so even if project Gara doesn't necessarily take off as it were for for people like us it could find a home in plenty of other places oh yeah definitely yeah all right well and with that we'll go ahead and close the book on this particular topic for this week we hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Friday debate podcast by Android authority our first episode so for those of you who are listening to us for the first time which is pretty much all of you because this is our first episode thank you so much for being there with us I want to extend a quick thank you to all of our hosts and I will also say if you want to find Andrew grush on Andrew authority.com you can find his writing all over the place and as lead editor he does have his hand in a lot of bowls for a lot of people who are writing the content for our website you can find Jonathan Feist on Twitter at J Feist one JF s T1 and if you want to find some really random pontifications you can go over to Joe H's uh Twitter that is that Joe Hindi that is all three words put together spelled the way you think that Joe Hindi h i n d y you can find me at Josh salute as you may know already and you can also find me on Instagram and you can probably find our other guys on Instagram and you can find those links down in our description if you are watching this on YouTube or if you are on iTunes or Stitcher where you will find this podcast currently we're working on other syndications of course and it's only matter of time before we'll get there discuss all of our topics at our Android authority forums and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel Android authority of course remember everybody that we are your source for all things Android and thank you very much for watching and listening to the Friday debate podcast we'll see you guys next week\n"