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Mobile Tech That Died in 2016 - Second Part: Google Nexus Smartphones & Project Ara

Mobile Tech That Died in 2016 - Second Part: Google Nexus Smartphones & Project Ara

Regin Olimberio

2017 marks the new era in mobile technology and yet it is hard to shake off the nostalgic feel of 2016 where few of these tech died alongside the coming of new year. Our previous MobileNApp article lists Pebble Smartwatch, Samsung Galaxy Note7 and BlackBerry phones as fatalities of 2016. Now here are additional well-known mobile techs that we will never see again.

Google Nexus phones will always be remembered as harbinger of solid yet affordable Android experience. Greenbot headline reads in short catchy line: Google's Nexus is dead. Yes, the tech giant announced in October 2016 that fans will never see Nexus brand again.

While Google Nexus' replacement brand Pixel is just fine and can even rival Apple's iPhone, this successor came at premium price point. The latter is simply a phone outside of mass appeal of Google Nexus. At any rate, Google will continue to provide update for Nexus so we can still buy them at a cheap for sheer reason that it is getting wiped off the face of the earth anyway.

Would you like your phone to be modular in a sense that when a component breaks, you can simply buy a replacement instead of buying a whole phone altogether? This is the concept behind another Google heartbreak in 2016 - Project Ara. According to PC World, Project Ara was finally scrapped by Google and fast phone cycle was blamed as reason behind its demise.

It is time to forget the idea of Lego-styled smartphone and interchangeable parts or upgrades that Project Ara offered. Let us just say that it is time for Project Ara dreamers to ultimately wake up.

So there we go, the most promising mobile tech introduced few years back or even less, yet ended in their natural death. Come to think of it, decisions behind discontinued or recalled gizmos in 2016 are easy to justify. Mobile technology is fast-paced and few weren't able to keep up.

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