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Small companies can now develop phone modules and release products with more advanced technology in a specific area (battery tech, camera, etc) without designin
by jsharf 10y ago
Small companies can now develop phone modules and release products with more advanced technology in a specific area (battery tech, camera, etc) without designing the rest of the phone. It would ideally be compatible with any unipro phone. This is important because a lot of technologies that would normally make it into phones doesn't because of how difficult designing and launching a phone is. You definitely don't need to do all that work if all you want to do is make a phone with a smaller/better camera.
Another benefit is being able to repair your phone by swapping out a broken module rather than replacing the whole thing. This should reduce waste. Also, you don't need to get new phones every two years, you can just replace modules as they get outdated.
If done well enough, this could shift phones out of excessive consumerism, where buying a new phone is often cheaper than replacing an old one (or where repairing a phone is impossible).
- wlesieutre 10y ago> Also, you don't need to get new phones every two years, you can just replace modules as they get outdated. Alternately, you can replace each and every component immediately as soon as a minor upgrade is available! 0.5 more megapixels! Another 200 MHz on that Snapdragon! 5 GB RAM! The same battery pack, but this one has gold stripes and is clearly higher end!
- chiefofgxbxl 10y ago> The same battery pack, but this one has gold stripes and is clearly higher end! This point especially. New trends will come along in short time which will move the crowd constantly toward purchasing this flashy thing or that. Just imagine celebrities and pop culture capitalizing on this product. E.g. Same battery each model... But Model A has the battery plus a sticker of Celebrity A on it. 2 years later, Celebrity A isn't all the rage anymore. Celebrity B is where it's at. Well I guess everyone has to throw out their Model A battery since otherwise they'd be considered lame. Having modules be external to the device will only add to the crave. For example, I don't replace my RAM in my desktop because this model looks cooler than that model. I replace it based on performance. These phone modules, though, also serve an aesthetic purpose that must be sated.
- wlesieutre 10y agoMy hope against this scenario is that the kind of person who needs to buy every new accessory wouldn't touch a Project Ara phone because they're too silly looking or because the all-in-one models are slimmer and more fashionable (see iMac vs desktop towers). We'll see how it shakes out.
- jeromegv 10y agoSince the CPU, RAM and screen can't be updated, your phone will definitely get outdated after 2 years.
- Retric 10y agoI am not convinced people are still on 2 year phone upgrade cycles. Worse, Intel already dropped the Tick-Tock cycle and phones are not that far behind. I have a 4s, skipped 5s, thought about 6 or 6s, now I am going to wait for the 7. I just got the new 9.7 inch apple pro tablet and I don't notice it being all that much faster browsing the web.
- patall 10y agoTrue, but then you update CPU, RAM and screen but stay with your 128 GB memory, 3 different batteries and infra-red camera you bought. It's not ideal but still better than now.