Last year was a pretty exciting time for Google, having taken on the Phonebloks concept and created Project Ara. While the first Ara devices were scheduled to arrive some time this year in selected markets, it seems Google wants to spend a little more time developing the modular smartphone, pushing things back to next year.

While initially the first Ara tests were set to take place in Puerto Rico, Google is now also scouting locations in the US for testing. This will include a marketplace where developers can sell their modules.

Google is delaying Project Ara until next year, as there have been “lots of iterations” of the device, more than the company initially thought it would come up with. So it seems that for now, Google is still testing out exactly how to approach building a modular smartphone and bringing it to the market.

The announcement was made over on the Project Ara Twitter account. We've had a look at a couple of prototypes so far but the project is still some ways off. The device will come with a ‘skeleton', users will then be able to attach things like the processor, camera, speakers ect, to the back of the phone using magnets to keep everything secure.

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KitGuru Says: Project Ara is certainly an exciting development and it has been very interesting to follow over the past year or so. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing Ara phones out in the wild until next year, though it is understandable, after all, this is a very different approach to traditional smartphones. 

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