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Sad to see Ara die. I don't understand why they took three years to realise the path they were pursuing didn't work. Why couldn't they figure out earlier so the

Sad to see Ara die. I don't understand why they took three years to realise the path they were pursuing didn't work. Why couldn't they figure out earlier so they still had time to do something that works? Google should have pursued a less ambitious and more practical version of the idea. Instead of making everything replaceable, maybe just identify one component that would be. Like the camera. Why do I have to buy a new phone if all I want is a new camera? Would a phone with only one or two replaceable components be feasible to build, and not impose too many tradeoffs? The Ara team pursued the "everything should be replaceable" dream for too long, and failed. I wonder if a limited version would have been feasible. It doesn't make sense that you should buy a new smartphone, priced at as much as ₹80K ($1000) even if all you want is one new component. Imagine if you had to buy a new laptop for more storage for your movies, and external hard discs didn't exist. Or a bigger screen, when you could use an external monitor. And so on.

rincebrain 10y ago
The problem with that is that it's not just one or two components that are new iterations when you upgrade your phone - CPU, GPU, display (or, more likely, generation of protective tech on display, at this point), camera, maybe speakers, the antenna(e) could be workable barring something like a 4G->5G iteration if they covered enough to start with...and that's all ignoring the custom-shaped battery, which would get smaller to fit the modular slot. Plus the one upgradable component that stops having feature-parity often long before the rest - software stack. The number of problems with getting random bugs out would get worse by the number of modular parts, and few Android vendors that I've seen keep phones updated for even 3 years, let alone 6. It's been the case for a long time that you lose customization when you shrink the form factor, as you start squeezing every component down to its minimal essentials, and because it lets you start making tradeoffs you can only make if you know intimate details of the entire platform. I would, quite fervently, like for a modular smartphone to work, and to not have to do the equivalent of paying hundreds of dollars every few years when my phone gives up the ghost or is EOL (or both). I just don't see the technology advancing that way until we get way better at miniaturization, such that fitting functionality into the phone form factor is no longer a strong pressure constraint.
- kartickv 10y ago
  Any component could theoretically cause someone to want to upgrade their phone, but in practice, some would be more frequent driving factors than others. Have you done market research to identify these? If you were to make only those replaceable, you'd derive much of the benefit, but only incur some of the cost. A phone with only some modular parts would hopefully be not as thick as one with all parts modular. You'd have fewer random bugs, since there are fewer combinations. Regarding software updates, that would be taken care of by a phone made by Google, like Nexus. Concretely, how much thicker would the Pixel be if the camera were replaceable? 1mm? I'd take that tradeoff, particularly since the additional mm of thickness would result in better battery life.
  - rincebrain 10y ago
    I do work for Google, but not on anything phone-related, and have no more information about what goes into phone design decisions than most others randomly sampled on HN. Consequently, no, I have no market data on what drives phone replacement, though my own limited circle of personal experience suggests either catastrophic failure or a threshold of the device performing unusably poorly as the most common reasons, more than wanting a shiny upgrade. The phone would probably be more than 1mm thicker in order to accommodate a sturdy mount for the modular thing to slot into alone, let alone whatever additional wiring overhead might be involved for having enough bandwidth to speak arbitrary optical device protocols encapsulated in some standard - and then you might have a failure as version 1.x can only speak up to 2K resolution, 2.x 4K, and so on, so you might end up needing a phone upgrade _anyway_ to get that 4k camera. Yes, paying upfront for a device like the Pixel buys you X years of device updates, but there are plenty of people who can't afford to buy a phone for the upfront price all at once, even if it might offer cost savings on modular upgrades later. I might also take that tradeoff, but then, I prioritize durability in my phones over tiny size, since I have relatively large hands and a habit of breaking my phones.

rincebrain 10y ago

The problem with that is that it's not just one or two components that are new iterations when you upgrade your phone - CPU, GPU, display (or, more likely, generation of protective tech on display, at this point), camera, maybe speakers, the antenna(e) could be workable barring something like a 4G->5G iteration if they covered enough to start with...and that's all ignoring the custom-shaped battery, which would get smaller to fit the modular slot. Plus the one upgradable component that stops having feature-parity often long before the rest - software stack. The number of problems with getting random bugs out would get worse by the number of modular parts, and few Android vendors that I've seen keep phones updated for even 3 years, let alone 6. It's been the case for a long time that you lose customization when you shrink the form factor, as you start squeezing every component down to its minimal essentials, and because it lets you start making tradeoffs you can only make if you know intimate details of the entire platform. I would, quite fervently, like for a modular smartphone to work, and to not have to do the equivalent of paying hundreds of dollars every few years when my phone gives up the ghost or is EOL (or both). I just don't see the technology advancing that way until we get way better at miniaturization, such that fitting functionality into the phone form factor is no longer a strong pressure constraint.

kartickv 10y ago
Any component could theoretically cause someone to want to upgrade their phone, but in practice, some would be more frequent driving factors than others. Have you done market research to identify these? If you were to make only those replaceable, you'd derive much of the benefit, but only incur some of the cost. A phone with only some modular parts would hopefully be not as thick as one with all parts modular. You'd have fewer random bugs, since there are fewer combinations. Regarding software updates, that would be taken care of by a phone made by Google, like Nexus. Concretely, how much thicker would the Pixel be if the camera were replaceable? 1mm? I'd take that tradeoff, particularly since the additional mm of thickness would result in better battery life.
- rincebrain 10y ago
  I do work for Google, but not on anything phone-related, and have no more information about what goes into phone design decisions than most others randomly sampled on HN. Consequently, no, I have no market data on what drives phone replacement, though my own limited circle of personal experience suggests either catastrophic failure or a threshold of the device performing unusably poorly as the most common reasons, more than wanting a shiny upgrade. The phone would probably be more than 1mm thicker in order to accommodate a sturdy mount for the modular thing to slot into alone, let alone whatever additional wiring overhead might be involved for having enough bandwidth to speak arbitrary optical device protocols encapsulated in some standard - and then you might have a failure as version 1.x can only speak up to 2K resolution, 2.x 4K, and so on, so you might end up needing a phone upgrade _anyway_ to get that 4k camera. Yes, paying upfront for a device like the Pixel buys you X years of device updates, but there are plenty of people who can't afford to buy a phone for the upfront price all at once, even if it might offer cost savings on modular upgrades later. I might also take that tradeoff, but then, I prioritize durability in my phones over tiny size, since I have relatively large hands and a habit of breaking my phones.