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This is a wonderful example of why you shouldn't shoot down concepts. When that designer unveiled his idea for Phonebloks, the majority of the feedback was crit

by kyro 13y ago

This is a wonderful example of why you shouldn't shoot down concepts. When that designer unveiled his idea for Phonebloks, the majority of the feedback was criticism about how it wasn't technically feasible, how the designer was being unrealistic and downright naive for not understanding the mechanics [1]. But that's what concept design is about. You create what you envision to be a progressive solution, and find ways to make it technologically feasible. You would think that after all of the stories of Jobs demanding devices be smaller, sleeker, thinner, more responsive, being told it'd be near impossible to do, and seeing him actually pull it off, that people would be a bit more open to new design solutions. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6385105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6385105

TylerE 13y ago
This is very different than Phonebloks, which was and is totally impractical. This seems to be for peripherals only, not the core system.
- IanCal 13y ago
  > And really, skies the limit when it comes to the modules that can be attached to an endo. Hardware keyboard, faster processor, bigger battery, or something different altogether (taser gun perhaps?). Anything you can dream up. Emphasis mine. Hardly seems like just peripherals.
  - TylerE 13y ago
    Adding an ADDITIONAL faster processor is proven tech. Heck, Nintendo was doing that with $70 cartridges 20 years (e.g. the FX ship used in games like Starfox essentially overrode the built-in processor, but the main CPU in the console was still used for basic IO. It's when you're talking about actually REMOVING that built in processor that things get really interesting.
    - LarrySDonald 13y ago
      Well, there's no particular reason that part couldn't be swapped too, sort of like swapping the motherboard in a PC and then connecting everything else you already had. Yes, that would be essentially upgrading to a "new" phone but if the standard held you could still use the screen, camera, memory and so forth which isn't possible now (potentially later upgrading those bit by bit as need be).
- kyro 13y ago
  From the official Motorola Blog: > "A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of!" [1] So it doesn't seem too-far removed from the original Phonebloks concept. And you can't really tell me that had this new version been presented as the original, we wouldn't have seen the same feedback. [1] http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hello-ara.html http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hel...
  - zanny 13y ago
    The definition of what is "core" to a computer is nebulous at best. Nothing stops you from having a SOC mainboard with some flash memory and an embedded processor that can run on its own, with peripheral attachments to add in beefier hardware as need be. That is what PCI is for, after all. I think that may be one the largest failures of modern computing - we never built a hardware platform where just socketing (especially in a plug and play way) new processors, memory, busses etc was fluid and feasible. The performance penalties were always huge (albeit understandable with a monolithic virtual memory abstraction if you don't account for varying degrees of locality).
sown 13y ago
I think everyone got hung up on the implementation details. For example, the engineers saw pins and they all saw blood in the water.
martythemaniak 13y ago
The way in which you shoot down something matters greatly. When I saw phoneblocks, I was instantly reminded of designers who work without regard for their medium - a great concept with zero thought given on how to make it a reality, or even awareness of the compromises the medium will inevitably impose. If you're a front-end developer, at some point you were probably given an awesome-looking PDF, then expected to make a website/app that is a 1:1 representation of it. Of course, that never ends up happening and you have explain why it could never be a reality. I'm really excited to see where this goes, but whatever it ends up being, I can guarantee you it won't look much like that phoneblocks video.
- kyro 13y ago
  > "whatever it ends up being, I can guarantee you it won't look much like that phoneblocks video." Yes, because concepts evolve. Your guarantee isn't some bold bet you're making, and I assume it's supposed to show how impractical the initial design was. But this is standard across all creative industries, from tech, to fashion, to auto: You start with what many times seems like a farfetched idea and you evolve it into a consumer product that retains your initial vision as much as possible.
- pwhython 13y ago
  > "If you're a front-end developer, at some point you were probably given an awesome-looking PDF, then expected to make a website/app that is a 1:1 representation of it. Of course, that never ends up happening and you have explain why it could never be a reality." I'm going off topic, but as a designer and a front-end developer, I get frustrated when the developed product isn't a 1:1 representation (when sending out the work to get coded). The end result should be a pixel perfect match of the artwork. Nothing is impossible translating an image to a website/app.
  - robwgibbons 13y ago
    You've obviously never hit one of the many edge-cases in front-end development that are simply not possible (without an incredible amount of hacking effort). Multi-line vertical text-centering is a great example (try v-centering a paragraph of variable/unknown height). Or the way text wraps around an image differently at varying widths ("can we make it not break like that? I don't like how it flows at X width"). Or dynamically truncating a block of text and adding an ellipsis automatically, at any given size, in a responsive design. There are a LOT of examples of "blue sky" design that simply cannot be translated easily, if at all, into HTML/CSS. This is why it's so important that designers have fundamental understanding of the technologies they're working with.

by kyro 13y ago

TylerE 13y ago

This is very different than Phonebloks, which was and is totally impractical. This seems to be for peripherals only, not the core system.

IanCal 13y ago
> And really, skies the limit when it comes to the modules that can be attached to an endo. Hardware keyboard, faster processor, bigger battery, or something different altogether (taser gun perhaps?). Anything you can dream up. Emphasis mine. Hardly seems like just peripherals.
- TylerE 13y ago
  Adding an ADDITIONAL faster processor is proven tech. Heck, Nintendo was doing that with $70 cartridges 20 years (e.g. the FX ship used in games like Starfox essentially overrode the built-in processor, but the main CPU in the console was still used for basic IO. It's when you're talking about actually REMOVING that built in processor that things get really interesting.
  - LarrySDonald 13y ago
    Well, there's no particular reason that part couldn't be swapped too, sort of like swapping the motherboard in a PC and then connecting everything else you already had. Yes, that would be essentially upgrading to a "new" phone but if the standard held you could still use the screen, camera, memory and so forth which isn't possible now (potentially later upgrading those bit by bit as need be).
kyro 13y ago
From the official Motorola Blog: > "A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of!" [1] So it doesn't seem too-far removed from the original Phonebloks concept. And you can't really tell me that had this new version been presented as the original, we wouldn't have seen the same feedback. [1] http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hello-ara.html http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hel...
- zanny 13y ago
  The definition of what is "core" to a computer is nebulous at best. Nothing stops you from having a SOC mainboard with some flash memory and an embedded processor that can run on its own, with peripheral attachments to add in beefier hardware as need be. That is what PCI is for, after all. I think that may be one the largest failures of modern computing - we never built a hardware platform where just socketing (especially in a plug and play way) new processors, memory, busses etc was fluid and feasible. The performance penalties were always huge (albeit understandable with a monolithic virtual memory abstraction if you don't account for varying degrees of locality).

sown 13y ago

I think everyone got hung up on the implementation details. For example, the engineers saw pins and they all saw blood in the water.

martythemaniak 13y ago

The way in which you shoot down something matters greatly. When I saw phoneblocks, I was instantly reminded of designers who work without regard for their medium - a great concept with zero thought given on how to make it a reality, or even awareness of the compromises the medium will inevitably impose. If you're a front-end developer, at some point you were probably given an awesome-looking PDF, then expected to make a website/app that is a 1:1 representation of it. Of course, that never ends up happening and you have explain why it could never be a reality. I'm really excited to see where this goes, but whatever it ends up being, I can guarantee you it won't look much like that phoneblocks video.

kyro 13y ago
> "whatever it ends up being, I can guarantee you it won't look much like that phoneblocks video." Yes, because concepts evolve. Your guarantee isn't some bold bet you're making, and I assume it's supposed to show how impractical the initial design was. But this is standard across all creative industries, from tech, to fashion, to auto: You start with what many times seems like a farfetched idea and you evolve it into a consumer product that retains your initial vision as much as possible.
pwhython 13y ago
> "If you're a front-end developer, at some point you were probably given an awesome-looking PDF, then expected to make a website/app that is a 1:1 representation of it. Of course, that never ends up happening and you have explain why it could never be a reality." I'm going off topic, but as a designer and a front-end developer, I get frustrated when the developed product isn't a 1:1 representation (when sending out the work to get coded). The end result should be a pixel perfect match of the artwork. Nothing is impossible translating an image to a website/app.
- robwgibbons 13y ago
  You've obviously never hit one of the many edge-cases in front-end development that are simply not possible (without an incredible amount of hacking effort). Multi-line vertical text-centering is a great example (try v-centering a paragraph of variable/unknown height). Or the way text wraps around an image differently at varying widths ("can we make it not break like that? I don't like how it flows at X width"). Or dynamically truncating a block of text and adding an ellipsis automatically, at any given size, in a responsive design. There are a LOT of examples of "blue sky" design that simply cannot be translated easily, if at all, into HTML/CSS. This is why it's so important that designers have fundamental understanding of the technologies they're working with.