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Modularity is going to remain very very much alive, at least for mobile phones. Here's why. A mobile phone needs to be a certain size to hold it. There's alwa

by quink 13y ago

Modularity is going to remain very very much alive, at least for mobile phones. Here's why. A mobile phone needs to be a certain size to hold it. There's always going to be a minimum size, beyond which it won't be sensible, it won't be usable. See this? https://www.google.com.au/search?q=panasonic+gd55&tbm=isch https://www.google.com.au/search?q=panasonic+gd55&tbm=isch When have you last seen one of those being used? People want their 4 or 5 inch screen, it's as simple as that. The most frequently sold Android devices used to be fairly dinky 320 by 240 affairs, but at the price difference becoming fairly tiny, they've now given way to devices with bigger screens, higher resolutions and more processing power. The Google Nexus 4, for instance, features a base frame that 's a fairly thick chunk of Aluminium. It's bezel features large back areas at the top and the bottom of more than a centimetre each. It features triumphs of miniaturisation within, sure, but the product itself isn't. It's designed to be used by human hands. The only thing that really requires the space is the battery and the antenna. The antenna can be built into the base frame. It could even be a sheet that sits underneath the components that could also be replaced. Or it could be a bezel, similar to that starting on the original iPhone 4, that might also double as a bumper frame for the thing. Have a bumper frame with connectors and you're there. Or maybe at some point those extra 3 or 6 dB don't matter much any longer for the majority of the market, especially if a lot of the heavy lifting will be done through WiFi. When it comes to the speed a phone can accomplish as it matters to the vast majority of the market, then size of the components to make that happen is not that much of a constraining factor. At some point, the diminishing returns of a modular phone vs. a non-modular phone will bring it to a point where the performance difference, as it matters to the average consumer, will be about, let's say, 20% or maybe even 30%. But when you can target the one aspect of performance that matters most to you and swap that out, if you can prioritise there, then you have the ability to make up for that. If you then also have the components, on average, each last twice as long for your needs than would otherwise have been the case, it's just become twice as valuable an investment. I like the size of my Nexus 4, and any performance penalties imposed by modularisation are outweighed by being able to swap out components and it being a better investment. There are diminishing returns to making mobile phones smaller. Desktop computers have reached a certain size and then they didn't really get any smaller because they had no reason to and modularisation outweighed that. Why not the same with mobile phones?

quink 13y ago
"But longer battery life"
- quink 13y ago
  I don't care. Make the processor more efficient, make the screen more efficient and it really becomes a non-issue. LG could have put in more battery in the Nexus 4 had they really wanted to, probably 20% more. Remember Nokias with four or five week battery lives? Well, with re-thinking on the other sides of this, like ubiquitous MicroUSB, battery life beyond two days became a bit of a non-issue. Completely. Sure, some phones might be constrained because of battery life, but they're not in the majority. It's just a standard component of a rectangular shape and thickness they put in these days and it's good enough. What am I really going to do with, what, 20% more battery life, if it already lasts 2 days? And how about the possibility of each of these components adding more than one functionality? Who is to says that a GPU component can't also add a battery? I wouldn't mind having a phone with two batteries. And no one is saying that everything in the phone should be modularised out. How about a module just called 'mainboard' that contains everything but the battery and the antenna, and of course the screen? You could then override or enhance functions on this mainboard with additional modules. And it would be easy to replace. The concept of these connectors and all wasting space becomes a bit of a weird thought if you actually might hold it in your hand an realise that it's a good size, it has good performance, it has good battery life, it has a good screen and there might only be two or three modules in the eight module slots available. And that's doable. Saying that there's wasted space in a phone like that becomes, instead of a criticism, it becomes a justification for buying new modules. All in all, the wasted space in this is not going to outweigh the "wasted space" (if you can call it that) in the majority of smart phones out there by a substantial amount. In fact, it gives manufacturers an incentive to cram every single cubic millimetre they're given with as much functionality as possible, or at least sensible, because their revenue will depend on this utterly in a freer market. Has that been the case so far? I've repaired my Nexus 4. There are plenty of cubic millimetres of space being used that, strictly speaking, don't really need to be. Most of what's happening here is that these structural cubic millimetres are being shifted to a different and sure, a bit less efficient shape. The only outcome that matters coming out of all of this will be that it might cost $15 more. Or $5. Or some small integer dollars to pay for all the connectors. But if I can use at least half of it twice as long, that's an amount that doesn't much matter. Here's a secret: The Nexus 4 is already full of spring loaded connectors anyway. I counted. It has about 5 going to the back cover. And one for the speaker. Add the SIM and that's another one. Then add the two connectors for antennas... and arrive at about 9. If you count the battery, which uses sprung pins in addition to two screws, that's 10. This thing has eight visible at the back, add a SIM and you arrive at 9, and add maybe another one or two at the front. Ten, maybe eleven. So, really, the only big difference is that these connectors are now more easily user accessible and the aluminium frame is a bit of a different shape. There's already plenty of internal plastic to surround individual components in a Nexus 4 anyway, so just make it a bit thicker on the outside. Not a big leap, people. "But everything is moving towards integration" Well, that hardly precludes it from moving in this direction as well. The CPU being on the same silicon as some mesaure of GPU is hardly going to be fundamentally affected by this, is it now?

by quink 13y ago

quink 13y ago

"But longer battery life"

quink 13y ago
I don't care. Make the processor more efficient, make the screen more efficient and it really becomes a non-issue. LG could have put in more battery in the Nexus 4 had they really wanted to, probably 20% more. Remember Nokias with four or five week battery lives? Well, with re-thinking on the other sides of this, like ubiquitous MicroUSB, battery life beyond two days became a bit of a non-issue. Completely. Sure, some phones might be constrained because of battery life, but they're not in the majority. It's just a standard component of a rectangular shape and thickness they put in these days and it's good enough. What am I really going to do with, what, 20% more battery life, if it already lasts 2 days? And how about the possibility of each of these components adding more than one functionality? Who is to says that a GPU component can't also add a battery? I wouldn't mind having a phone with two batteries. And no one is saying that everything in the phone should be modularised out. How about a module just called 'mainboard' that contains everything but the battery and the antenna, and of course the screen? You could then override or enhance functions on this mainboard with additional modules. And it would be easy to replace. The concept of these connectors and all wasting space becomes a bit of a weird thought if you actually might hold it in your hand an realise that it's a good size, it has good performance, it has good battery life, it has a good screen and there might only be two or three modules in the eight module slots available. And that's doable. Saying that there's wasted space in a phone like that becomes, instead of a criticism, it becomes a justification for buying new modules. All in all, the wasted space in this is not going to outweigh the "wasted space" (if you can call it that) in the majority of smart phones out there by a substantial amount. In fact, it gives manufacturers an incentive to cram every single cubic millimetre they're given with as much functionality as possible, or at least sensible, because their revenue will depend on this utterly in a freer market. Has that been the case so far? I've repaired my Nexus 4. There are plenty of cubic millimetres of space being used that, strictly speaking, don't really need to be. Most of what's happening here is that these structural cubic millimetres are being shifted to a different and sure, a bit less efficient shape. The only outcome that matters coming out of all of this will be that it might cost $15 more. Or $5. Or some small integer dollars to pay for all the connectors. But if I can use at least half of it twice as long, that's an amount that doesn't much matter. Here's a secret: The Nexus 4 is already full of spring loaded connectors anyway. I counted. It has about 5 going to the back cover. And one for the speaker. Add the SIM and that's another one. Then add the two connectors for antennas... and arrive at about 9. If you count the battery, which uses sprung pins in addition to two screws, that's 10. This thing has eight visible at the back, add a SIM and you arrive at 9, and add maybe another one or two at the front. Ten, maybe eleven. So, really, the only big difference is that these connectors are now more easily user accessible and the aluminium frame is a bit of a different shape. There's already plenty of internal plastic to surround individual components in a Nexus 4 anyway, so just make it a bit thicker on the outside. Not a big leap, people. "But everything is moving towards integration" Well, that hardly precludes it from moving in this direction as well. The CPU being on the same silicon as some mesaure of GPU is hardly going to be fundamentally affected by this, is it now?