Project Ara says failed drop test was a joke, found better solution for securing modules

Humor doesn’t always translate so well online. Whoever is in charge of Project Ara’s Twitter account may have learned that the hard way. From the beginning, Project Ara had plans to use electropermanent magnets to secure modules to the actual phone. Yesterday, we learned that, after a “failed drop test,” the Ara team would be moving away from magnets, but didn’t say what else they had in mind. Of course, the internet took that tweet at face value and ran with it, painting a picture of prototypes falling to pieces upon hitting the floor.

Today, whoever is running Project Ara’s Twitter account is back and admits that yesterday’s tweet was… well, just a “joke.” Turns out they simply found a new solution, one that they claim is better than the magnets they had planned to use originally. Of course, this kind of makes sense. We mentioned in yesterday’s post that this is probably the first thing you think about when building a smartphone with removable parts: what happens when you drop it? We’re sure the team at Ara didn’t somehow overlook this when building the phone.

The other bit of news is that Project Ara also mentioned that they’re hard at work on improving the camera and battery life of the phone, but wouldn’t dive into specifics. We only hope everything comes together in time for its new 2016 release (most likely in the US) and we are still as excited as ever to get our hands on Project Ara. For a behind the scenes look at the team behind Project Ara, check out Phoneblok’s video below.