Google's Project Ara modular phone will initially be sold from food trucks in Puerto Rico

Google is holding its second Project Ara developer's conference today in Mountain View and is in the process of giving a roadmap on how and when it might get its modular smartphones out into the market. Probably the most notable bit of news we've learned so far is that Google plans to have a market pilot ready to go in the second half of this year. Unfortunately, if you want to give it a shot, you'll need to live in Puerto Rico — the pilot will roll out in that territory in partnership with carriers OpenMobile and Claro.

When Project Ara hits Puerto Rico, users should be able to customize their devices using the Ara Marketplace and Ara Configurator apps. Google's ATAP group will also roll out some "food-truck" style stores for consumers to actually check these devices out before they try them out. Google also says that it'll have some 20 to 30 Ara modules available by launch across 10 different categories.

Lone Wolf wrote:
     USING a third world shithole like Puerto Rico to launch it's new phones probably makes a lot of sense to Google...

Gives them a good chance to measure it's reliability, flexibility, adaptability and vulnerabilities, while showing up any faults early and allowing Google a bit of room and time to debug them earlier before hitting the larger (and more consumer critical..) markets.


AS FOR using those "food van" style trucks for mobile demo' vehicles  ~  that may seem strange to the modern day peasants in the USA or many parts of Europe,  but it's actually a bit more common out here in the wider world !

Like where  >80%  of the world's population lives..