Google's modular smartphone project sacrificed its original vision to move forward

Google's Project Ara modular smartphone is coming to developers soon, but it's lost a key part of its customization vision along the way. Developers will be able to get their hands on an early release version of Ara by the end of this year, to begin building custom hardware modules for the device, Google announced at its I/O conference Friday. The modules will allow users to customize their phones with hardware like cameras, speakers, and even a rear-facing display. Ara's initial philo