Official reason
Technical challenges; not moving to a consumer product.
Google · Hardware
Project Ara
RIP
2013–2016 · 3 years in market
A modular smartphone with snap-on blocks. Canceled before shipping, after years of demos.
Launched
Oct 29, 2013
Discontinued
Sep 2, 2016
Cause of death
Hardware miss
What actually happened
Modules, FCC, batteries, and structural integrity do not want to be friends. Supply chain hated it.
Lesson
Modular hardware multiplies certification and SKU cost. The dream is user-serviceable; the bill is combinatorial.
Related autopsies
RIP
Google Offers
2011–2013 · 2 yrs
Google’s Groupon clone, launched at the peak of daily-deal mania and gone with the bubble.
Commerce/Too early / too late+40
RIP
Google Reader
2005–2013 · 8 yrs
The RSS reader a generation of journalists and power users treated as a daily driver. Killed as RSS faded and Google chased social.
Media & Publishing/Low usage+39
Apple
RIP
Lisa
1983–1985 · 2 yrs
The first Apple GUI computer, priced into oblivion so the Macintosh could live.
Hardware/Cost / unit economics+38
RIP
Google Glass (Explorer)
2013–2015 · 2 yrs
A face-mounted computer that made civilians into ‘Glassholes.’ Privacy panic killed the consumer edition; enterprise limped on.
Wearables/Privacy backlash+37