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Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

164 points by JS1984 13y ago

encoderer 13y ago
I think the real-world use cases for a modular consumer device--like the Sasquatch of meaningful OOP code reuse--is overstated. I think this could work for business use. But the consumer equation is tricky. Phones are fashion. Also phones take a lot of abuse.
jacquesm 13y ago
The first time I saw a modular phone was long ago (2000) in the lab of a very large hardware company where they had a prototype from a start-up they'd invested in. It was made like a deck of cards, cpu, display/kbd, battery and cell components could all be swapped out. There even was a camera module for the back. It didn't make it. The main reasons iirc were that people see phones as integrated wholes, that contacts breed failure and that making an integrated phone versus one made out of pieces is simply cheaper. Curious how this one will fare! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks
- bane 13y ago
  > that contacts breed failure Just like in software, the interfaces are where the complexity lies.
Zigurd 13y ago
I give this about a 5% chance of success, and 1% market share, maybe less, if it does succeed. That's still more than 10 million units per year, so not a failure. But this isn't going to be your next phone. If it falls much below that unit volume, the scheme implodes because the optional components will not find enough of a market to get manufactured. In order to succeed, the internal connectivity scheme needs to not go obsolete over at least two, and preferably three product generations. It also needs to find a market. People still build their own PCs for gaming, for lab automation, and other distinctly minority pursuits. So far, the niche for this product seems to be "people who find the idea attractive but can't articulate an actual need."
- blah314 13y ago
  If all my module slots can go to batteries, I'll be tempted.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    I think they said at least 2 modules can be used as battery (the larger ones).
  - eloisant 13y ago
    Hmm, battery without CPU or storage won't lead you far.
- Zak 13y ago
  But this isn't going to be your next phone. This is Hacker News, where people are disproportionately far more likely to buy such a thing than the average consumer. I would expect to see the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 significantly overrepresented here as well; the only people I know in person who own them are hackers.
- silverlake 13y ago
  Drop the screen and add specialty sensors: you've got the Internet of Things.
kevingadd 13y ago
It's a little gross that they seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project and then entirely erased any traces of the original product and its creators. Hopefully that team's still involved and getting compensated...
- nodata 13y ago
  The Phonebloks creators work for them.
- itp 13y ago
  From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#Development I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to say they "seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project."
- seba_dos1 13y ago
  >PhoneBloks >product PhoneBloks was just a "product" of designer's imagination, nothing more. All he did was to think about "LEGO-phone" and make a catchy animation describing the idea - the idea that wasn't even unique or new, as similar ones (together with 3D-printed or homemade cases, which were later actually realized) were already appearing few years ago on Openmoko mailing lists triggered by GTA04 motherboard upgrade for Neo Freerunner.
- auganov 13y ago
  Was watching the live stream of the Ara conference yesterday and they explicitly talked about PhoneBloks a bit and even acknowledged that it has more public recognition. They also link to them - projectara.com/more.
id 13y ago
I really don't think phones will stay the way they are for decades. And modular phones definetely won't bear up for decades. At some point every piece of the phone will have been exchanged, making it a completely new phone.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  Is that a new phone though? invents the question of the philosopher's modular mobile phone
  - id 13y ago
    The ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that raises the exact same question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_change
    - 3rd3 13y ago
      Solution: People leave out the extra information that a part was replaced, an error which becomes obvious at this edge case.
    - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
      I love that that Wikipedia article references Sugababes - a British pop band which has changed entire line up over it's existence (begging the question is it still the same band).
sdfx 13y ago
I think John Gruber over at Daring Fireball said it best: "I remain highly skeptical that a modular design can compete in a product category where size, weight, and battery life are at such a premium. Even if they can bring something to market, why would any normal person be interested in a phone like this?" http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/04/15/project-ara http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/04/15/project-ara
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.
  - supercoder 13y ago
    He's not suggesting there a no advantages , just that the ones that it does provide won't be enough to compete against non modular phones.
  - skywhopper 13y ago
    You've misread his statement. He sees the benefit, but points out that the tradeoffs will be the main areas of competition among smartphones: size, weight, battery life. All three will be worse in a modular phone. You'll also get less for your money overall. Not to mention that having to choose among components just adds an additional layer of option stress that most consumers don't want. Sure, there's a market for a modular phone, but it's not going to seriously compete against the Galaxy or the iPhone in the mass market.
    - zheshishei 13y ago
      >Not to mention that having to choose among components just adds an additional layer of option stress that most consumers don't want. I think consumers actually like a little choice in their products now. I mean, take a look at the apple laptop website. Also, I could imagine vendors offering different phone presets (e.g. battery life, photo-taking, media consumption) and then letting the customer further customize it if they want.
higherpurpose 13y ago
If you read Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution [1] book (sequel to Innovator's Dilemma), you'll see him talk about "integration" and "disintegration" (basically the modularization of a product or market). So in the early days of a new market/category of product, the products are highly integrated, for several reasons. One is that the market is still new, so there isn't much of an "ecosystem" to begin with. Another is that the company with the "first mover's advantage" wants to keep stuff proprietary as much as possible, and another is that the product still kind of "sucks" in some areas (camera, battery life, in early days of the iPhone for example - compared to the traditional competition). So they need to make everything work as tightly as possible, to squeeze all the possible optimization out of it. But eventually, the market becomes mature, the ecosystem grows, and the products become "good enough" for most people. So much of that extreme optimization or need to keep everything proprietary and in-house isn't needed anymore, and you actually start getting some advantages from the modularization of the market, such as buying a better modem than you can make from a "modem company", and so on. For a while I wasn't sure this was going to happen to the smartphone market (ignoring the fact that there has been an increasing trend towards customization through colors and whanot), because for one the smartphone is a very tighly put together product, and it's hard to imagine how it could've been separated into a dozen different pieces without being junk, and two, for a while the trend was towards increasing "closeness" of devices, rather than openness. But it seems it's going to happen, and ARA looks just about right (I wasn't a big fan of the Phonebloks pin-model). Still, even if the strategy here is "correct", and most likely on the right side of history, Google will still need to excel at execution, and make sure using such a phone gives very few disadvantages compared to a regular phone, but many more advantages (being able to use whatever camera you want, without buying a $700 phone every year, and so on). Otherwise, people could be turned off by the initial version, and then it will be a lot harder to convince them what a good idea this is. But for now I'm optimistic. [1] - http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful-ebook/dp/B00E257S7C/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1397650807&sr=8-1&keywords=innovator%27s+solution http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustainin...
- andosa 13y ago
  > So in the early days of a new market/category of product, the products are highly integrated Not sure about this one, seems like the opposite to me. Twenty years ago, PC's were very modular, and it was very common to add/upgrade a sound card, memory, cpu, video card etc. Fast forward to now, and for the most common computing devices (think tablets and smartphones), there is almost zero modularity or upgradability. Even with current PC's (i.e. mostly laptops), it's increasingly limited. The same trend is apparent in other similar technology. For example with analog TV, people could add a PAL block if their TV was NTSC or SECAM. Upgrading your car used to be significantly easier etc.
CHY872 13y ago
Yeah this is probably just one of Google's projects where they try and make a device that totally uses the concept, realise that most of it's pretty bad and redo it with a device that uses it for the single part that worked. The cynic in me says 'replaceable battery' but I'd like to see replaceable SOC.
- josefresco 13y ago
  Screen and battery are the two most common complaints/issues with current phones. Simply allowing consumers to buy and swap these two parts would go a long way.
Zak 13y ago
I find this interesting in contrast to Nexus devices. Two or three years ago, most Android phones had SD cards and removable batteries. These features have been conspicuously absent from recent Nexus phones in spite of their appeal to the power-user and developer markets who are among the most likely to want such features. I hope it gets some traction. I'm seeing a lot of sameness in high-spec Android phones, and something like this might help manufacturers learn what kinds of variations might sell without having to take the risk of mass-producing and marketing a new model. P.S. - if any manufacturers are reading this, I want a high-spec Android phone the size of an iPhone. My Nexus 5 is somewhat uncomfortable in my pocket and too hard to use one-handed due to its size.
- psbp 13y ago
  Moto X.
  - Zak 13y ago
    I'm not sure what part of my comment you're responding to, but I don't think the Moto X is a good response to anything I said. It doesn't have removable storage. It doesn't have a removable battery. With a 4.7" screen, it's much bigger than an iPhone.
    - mikeevans 13y ago
      Have you seen how big it is next to an iPhone? Pretty close in physical size, despite the screen. http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/142861-image/Apple-iPhone-5s-vs-Motorola-Moto-X-001.jpg http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/142861-image/Appl...
      - Zak 13y ago
        My mother owns a Moto X, bought on my recommendation. It is much closer in width to my Nexus 5 than it is to the iPhone and barely more comfortable for me to use one-handed than my Nexus 5. The difference in width is apparent in the photograph you linked. I commend Motorola for an excellent job eliminating non-screen area on the front of the Moto X. It's a very space-efficient device in that regard, but my complaint is about reaching all areas of a touchscreen with my thumb while holding it in one hand, and nothing fixes that like a smaller touchscreen.
AndrewDucker 13y ago
If one of the modules can be a keyboard, then I know a fair few people who will buy one...
- mike-cardwell 13y ago
  Sign me up
- Slackwise 13y ago
  The keyboard is the module I want. I used my T-Mobile G2 until it died a month ago, and had to do an emergency replacement, which ended up being a Nexus 5. I'm going absolutely insane not being able to just type without thinking about it. When you have to think about your input and often correct it, you are no longer able to simply stream your thoughts, and each micro-interruption is actually quite a distraction from getting things done. It's frustrating.
- sept 13y ago
  Keyboard is one of the modules. And hot-swap battery. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCXOXQ0f7c&feature=youtu.be&a= http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCXOXQ0f7c&feature=youtu.be&a=
LarryMade2 13y ago
Yeah, right. I remember computers built in the 90s and 2000s, touting their modular construction and never having to buy a new system again. I wonder if those machines are still in operation? I think what would guarantee longevity is something that is rock-solid good, inexpensive, repairable, and easy to develop on. I'm thinking of track records of computers like the Commodore 64, iMac, or in vehicles like the beetle, video game consoles, ipod, iphone etc.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  Pretty much this. You've got a backbone and some modules, but within a year the second generation of the same backbone and modules will be released, probably sized differently, different i/o, etc, because time simply won't stand still when it comes to devices. It'd be more marketable as a device with easily replaceable components, as mentioned above; easily replacing a screen or battery would be convenient for the more clumsy amongst us.
- qwerta 13y ago
  I think socket A was good example. Some motherboards could accommodate Duron @ 600 Mhz and Athlon XP 3200+
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >I remember computers built in the 90s and 2000s, touting their modular construction and never having to buy a new system again. Did these actually exist as a specific product, or are you just referring to all computers that weren't made by Apple?
- bane 13y ago
  You mean, pretty much any computer not made by Apple? Sure, I still have my home-rolled desktop from 7 years ago. I just put together a new machine earlier this year I expect to get at least that much life out of. I don't even buy top-spec parts, just good price/performance ratios for each part and cobble it together. And if something breaks I can fix it myself. It's not too technical and not too hard to do. About as complicated as making a full dinner with main course, two side dishes and a dessert. On the flip side, every other machine I've had that was closed, mostly laptops, but I'm thinking of my C64, and my Coco2, when the smallest piece died on those things, right into the trash they went. There's literally nothing you can do to fix them that doesn't involve an engineering degree and a lab.
bausson 13y ago
There is a market, or should I say: there are markets: * people who often broke their screens (my current boss is at 3 screens in 2 years, and counting) * enthusiast, early adopters, developpers,... * There is probably a good way to market it in developing countries too. I would love having that phone, even more with a firefoxOS running on it. Having that plateform with open hardware specifications would be a huge boon for it to become a viable ecosystem. I could see firefoxOS and windows phone boarding it quite easily if it take. PS: whereas specifications are open or not, IDK at the moment, not a lot of reliable information being available. Wishful thinking on my part I suppose. Still hoping.
netcan 13y ago
A musing about the aesthetic of modular: My first 21st century "gadget" (for some obviously arbitrary definition of the term) was an ipod nano. I'm not very sensitive to the niceness of things in general so I was pretty surprised at how much I liked how it looked and felt in my hands. It was, cold metallic, small, sleek and completely solid. It had no give in it at all and felt like a magic rock. The solidness of it made it feel futuristic. I find that I like my SSD laptop a lot more than the old HDD one for similar reasons. I think it has to do with it not revealing anything about how it works. I imagine artifacts of the future continuing along these lines. Impenetrable to analysis by the naked A solid mass of synthetic minerals arranged in a very precise way so that electrons are precisely directed this way or that way. But to the naked eye, there is no cause and effect beyond the minimal input and output. On the opposite side, I can get a lot of enjoyment from messing around with something like a foot-treadle loom or 18th century brass navigation instruments. Even just looking at them is fun. They are complicated enough to be very clever and interesting. Too clever to invent yourself. But, they are still simple enough to understand using your eyes. You can get an "aha!" from seeing the flying shuttle work on a loom. The objects themselves being so common in mythology also adds to the flavor. You can see the incredible potential of adding more gears and levers. It's an accessible cleverness that you can experience pretty directly. I find it fascinating that space cowboy fiction & steampunk exist. First, future tense nostalgia is an interesting concept. Second, I think it shows a kind of longing for objects that are both futuristic but understandable. The loom is obviously a human artifact. The ipod is something we intellectually understand to be an artifact, but emotionally it doesn't feel like human one. A magic object doesn't hint at its workings. Beyond the practical advantages of a modular device, I think there is a steampunk-esque appeal to the idea. We could weld together a brass spaceship using an energy crystal to power the electron sail (both naturally obtained by barter or pilage ).
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  You are the sort of person who would enjoy using modular synthesizers. * Not responsible for possible bankruptcy/ divorce/ loss of employment resulting from acting on above advice
  - 13y ago
evanmoran 13y ago
This is absolutely the right direction, but not in the way you think. This shouldn't be branded as a phone -- size and look matter too much. It should be branded the tool of the future, designed for people people in the field: electricians / construction workers / scientists / tinkerers. Let me plug in an altimeter, leveler, or multimeter. That is what is missing on my iPhone, and this is the first thing I've seen modular enough to pull it off. And, yes, I've been thinking Tricorder this whole time=).
- rch 13y ago
  I'm curious to see what I will be able to do with the interconnect myself. For instance, could I rig something up to hook a couple of modules to my laptop or car?
  - yarri 13y ago
    This question was asked at the tech conference yesterday, and they may clarify it in the MDK [0] but the project team seemed to downplay this aspect, preferring to pitch the idea of a "low cost mobile phone for the next billion users." Still, the modules can be emitters (ie., BT/ZigBe modules) although they were unclear about how module developers would get these certified. And I guess no one is stopping you from adding cables to a module, but the UniPro based and M-PHY current specs wouldn't get you very far... 10cm cable perhaps? [0] http://www.projectara.com/mdk/ http://www.projectara.com/mdk/
- stinos 13y ago
  Actually this thing is not entirley new and such tools already exist: there are enough arduino-style boards out there that allow you to create a phone already, as well as a bunch of other useful things: get a gps modules, a gprs module, a keyboard module and a screen module and off you go.
enscr 13y ago
People are viewing this project as a 'lego' phone that sounds great in theory but doesn't charm practically. However manufacturers can take a middle ground approach where future electronics slowly move towards hot swappable components. Upgrading & replacing defective parts shouldn't require a screw driver and perhaps as easy as plugging in a USB cable. When I'm buying a high end phone & spending $600, I'd want it to last 5-6+ years. However the current ones typically stay relevant for barely 2 years and the residual value is below $200. How about a phone that I'm not scared to drop because if something breaks, I can easily swap out a new LCD, ofcourse at a reasonable cost. Many users like me would be willing to sacrifice the form factor slightly to get the ability to make my device last longer. However all this goes against how manufacturers make money i.e. make you buy new product frequently & charge an arm & a leg for repairs.
- netcan 13y ago
  I like this train of thought. I doubt they can make a good, commercially viable phone straight away. If they just could release a backbone and a starter set of modules at a nexus7-ish price point, that might get things going. They need to get this thing into some people's hands (especially potential module developers) and see what they can do with it. Also, selling this as a way of long lived phone sounds like a terrible USB. I would put 'easily repairable' above it but the real value is the potential module ecosystem. Without that it's just some form of cheaper and that's a hard promise to keep. Phone is a relatively small part of what smartphones are. Is the phone a module here? It would be interesting to know what all the starter set modules do. It's disappointed to see all the cynicism on this thread. Commercial viability aside (come on, who knows), this is a cool fun project with interesting possibilities for making hardware innovation accessible.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  There are other models, like sell the razor cheap and charge more for the blades, which can support a product ecosystem, albeit a smaller one than that for grooming products. Consider that the FOB price for replacement cellphone cameras is under $5 in quantities of $100. The hardware is cheap, the labor of installing it into a phone that needs repair is not. But if you make it user-installable (as here), you can sell the exact same camera for maybe $20-30, with only a minimal increase in the cost of production for the modular package. So this could work out quite nicely for component manufacturers by giving them a small additional revenue stream from enthusiast/hobby buyers. All those people complaining that it won't be competitive with other phones for consumer dollars are totally missing the point. Of course consumers will continue to prefer all-in-one products from brand name manufacturers like Apple and Samsung, for the same reason that most consumers want a car that Just Works rather one that requires them to be an amateur mechanic. And yet, there's a thriving retail business in auto parts, because a lot of people do like to hack on their cars or carry out their own repairs. And likewise, there's a market for modular phones among hackers, engineers, high school and college students, and all sorts of other niches, who want flexibility but don't necessarily want to go down the Arduino route with soldering and building their own cases and PCBs. Simple example: stick two camera modules into one of these things, and you have a super cheap 3d camera platform. This will be absolutely huge in the developing world where utility >> convenience or aesthetics.
ctdonath 13y ago
As technology continues to shrink more functionality into less space, it crosses the threshold where human limits require the device be at least this big (whatever that size/shape minimum is). A screen can only be so small before it's practically unreadable. A touch area must provide at least so much space between tap targets and accommodate "fat fingers". The box of a phone must be big enough to hold comfortably to an ear. A small matchbox-size device would just plain be too awkward to use. Seems Apple initiated the unchangeable phone (no swappable battery, extremely tight/solid tolerances) in part to get all that core functionality inside a box that small. Sufficient battery required XYZ volume; making it removable wasted a nontrivial amount of that, affecting talk time & durability. Now that core functionality can be smaller than the minimum usable size, including battery life acceptable to most users, there's some space again to "waste" on components like pluggable interconnects, module packaging (so a part is not fully exposed when removed), air gaps, etc. "This here's a good axe. It's had nine handles and three heads." "This is the last phone I bought. It's had nine batteries, three CPUs, two displays, four radios, ..."
abruzzi 13y ago
Once upon a time, when I was younger, I felt very strongly that I needed a computer with everything replaceable. I wanted to replace a CPU when it got too slow, new graphics card, upgradable RAM, storage, etc. But I found that in the end while I'd make small upgrades, I still replaced my computers at close to the same rate. That because some standard that was built into the old machine was no longer fast enough or wide enough for newer uses, or an interconnect standard changed (think ISA, to PCI, to PCI-X, to PCI-e) The other reason is while i could upgrade some parts, I couldn't upgrade all the parts, and pretty soon those parts were now two or three years old. They were no longer as reliable as a brand new system. I wonder with these modular phone ideas, if we're looking at the beige box PC industry all over? And whether it will be a good fit to mobile or whether you'll buy your modular system in a year, and then find in another two years that there is a new modular interconnect version without backwards compatibility, and gradually you won't be able to find modules that work with your current frame, so you have to replace that, and maybe the some of your old modules don't work with the new frame, so you have to replace them at the same time. Like a lot of beige bok PC geek, you'll end up with a drawer of old modules in a drawer that you hardly ever find a need for, but you cant bring yourself to throw them away unless they're actually broke. The smart person will just buy all new modules when they replace the frame (that what most people did when they replaced their beige box, because why upgrade but still carry over that old junky graphics card). Pretty soon your at a point where the primary benefit of modularity in not upgrading pieces, but the ability to spec exactly the phone you want when buying. But in reality there are a lot of phones on the market now, and you can come pretty close. I don't know that this will be the case, but its how I'd bet it would end up playing out.
- netcan 13y ago
  I think the PC analogy is wrong. I also framing this as money saving option is wrong. The potential is in flexibility. Phones are small. Tradeoffs are substantial. Some people would prefer 50% more battery life at the expense of the camera or weight. Maybe someone can make an e-ink screen that will double battery life. Some people might want to spend $800 on the camera. IMO, that's the benefit. Commercially, I see this as something can keep buying add ons to. The market of people who buy 2-3 pricey covers for an ipad is legit. People like their phones and add ons might sell because people will just want to buy new things for them. In that sense, maybe this will extend life a little or partially as you take some old modules with you, but that's not the point. The point is can flexibility let people make a phone they like better and enjoy doing it.
gcb0 13y ago
heh. you guy really have any hope? just count the number of devices google and its nexus partners released without even a sd card slot! motorola too since the google devices started. the market demands that fast obsolency and they are evil now. the only thing holding back the nexus one as a strong daily phone is that it have no space for more than 5 modern apps. it does if you hack android 2.3 to install apps on the SD... anyway. i wouldnt hold my breath. this is being done just to fail and harm other people pursuing it honestly. cynic much? probably. but i am mostly stating facts. how much does a sd slot saved in costs from your $600 phone? nothing. hiw many years its lack cut from the device longevity? more than half. edit: plus the feature they advertise more is electro magnets! on a device where the biggest concern is battery... and which will have a case anyway that could hold everything together in case they used simple mechanical latches.
koalaman 13y ago
I wish someone had done this for PCs 20 years ago.
- stackcollision 13y ago
  Can you clarify what you mean? Maybe not 20, but 15 years ago my dad was mucking around in the guts of our family computer, performing his own upgrades. By the time we got rid of that thing the only original component was the case. And nowadays you can order any piece of hardware you want off the internet and slap it in.
bane 13y ago
I'd actually love it if this idea extended far enough to let me double my "phone" as an impromptu laptop/desktop. I know that we can use a bluetooth keyboard or whatever and kind of simulate things. But I'd love to carry around a single computing device that I can drop into a cradle at home and it's using my two big desktop monitors and nice keyboard/mouse, and when out and about, head into a coffee shop and swap the screen out for a larger screen and keyboard, and then head onto the subway and just swap the screen back and use it like a phone. Then end of the day, head to the gym and swap out a few parts and have it just play music for me while I work out. Head out for a hike on the weekend and configure it like the Gym, but put in a better GPS unit and a bigger battery or something. Go to the store and swap out the GPS unit for a barcode scanner so I can comparison shop a bit. If something breaks, I can fix it myself. Go home and plug it into an HDMI port and watch movies or play games or something. Want to read a book? Swap out the screen for an e-ink screen. Going on a trip? swap in the GPS device, big battery and the Nokia camera module so I can use my nice lenses and find my way to the sites. Swap the screen for the bigger screen later so I can review and edit my photos for the day. I could trade my notebook, camera, desktop, console, media devices, mp3 player, e-book reader and tablet in entirely. But all my data is present for me and I can work on it, context appropriate to the interfaces I have available at that moment. I wouldn't mind having a few bits and parts floating around my backpack if it gave me the flexibility to do that kind of thing.
- scott_karana 13y ago
  The Ubuntu Edge was designed around a similar multi-purpose idea, though it wasn't physically modular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edge
- smorrow 13y ago
  I like the modularity idea, I don't know if I'd want to be swapping components five times a day though. If the idea is just to have the same files/data on all your "different" devices, I think I like the idea of running a central fileserver with that stuff on it, and having separate phone, desktop, etc, that each do two or three things and do them well, and they all mount the fileserver, which has a much storage as you want, gets backed up regularly, is where indexing happens, is where long-running downloads happen. and everything mounting that gets the same files. oh, and a server is less likely to go missing or stolen or soaked. Your idea is the simplest way to preserve application state between "different" devices, my idea is the best way to preserve saved-file state (and only that) between using different devices. Your idea has been done to some extent by the Motorola Lapdock, but I don't actually know anything about it.
drakaal 13y ago
Raise your hand if you bought an "upgradable" mother board in the 286 and 386 days.... Do you still have it? I have a computer that still uses some of the same screws that my 486 used. For a long time I kept the original hard disk spinning even though I didn't store stuff on it... But when IDE connectors went away I stopped bothering with keeping it for nostalgia. Even my case is no longer compatible, the power supply stopped being compatible long ago. Some of this is "advancements" some of it is just that manufactures want to sell you new stuff. Houses are about the only thing that are modular and you can say you will only need to buy one... The house I grew up in is nearly 200 years old. So far it hasn't needed to be replaced to do incompatibility.
joshuapants 13y ago
As someone mourning the fall of the full-qwerty physical keyboard phone (yes there are the new BB phones, but by the next time I upgrade I anticipate that BB will be dead), this gives me hope. There may not be enough people who want them for manufacturers to make whole phones, but maybe there are enough to support a market in quality keyboard modules.
fiatjaf 13y ago
Where are all those comments, blog posts and experts' analyses saying Phonebloks could never work in this world?
eric_cc 13y ago
This is not marketed at me. My phone buying thought process: Does this phone have the software I care about? Are apps tested to work with my exact device? Sold. I do not want to spend a split second thinking about modules or RAM or anything and I'm a very technical person. I cannot imagine my mom dealing with this crap. What is the market here? I would pay a premium to NOT deal with modules.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  I will certainly get one. Think about it like a little prototyping computer platform. I don't know if I'd make it my main phone for the reasons you describe, but I would definitely like a portable battery-powered computing device with modular capabilities, like a little Raspberry Pi that can go in my pocket instead of being stuck on the desk.
- stackcollision 13y ago
  Once this is out, you are paying a premium to not deal with modules by not getting one. It's a $50 phone you can swap components in and out of as upgrades become available. To me, that's infinitely better than buying a new $300 smartphone every other year. But there's also a second appeal. Right now, phones are impenetrable black-boxes. You get what the manufacturer thinks you want. The reason I think a modular phone will become very popular is the same reason the AR-15 is the most popular gun in America: because you can play with it. You can swap parts in and out depending on what you need. "Oh, I'm going hiking today? Better stick my extra-big battery and wide-field camera into my phone." "Apple's putting a new zillion-byte SSD in the iPhone 9Q? Well good thing I can just buy the zillion-byte module for my modular phone instead of having to buy a whole new one." And a million other examples.

164 points by JS1984 13y ago

I think the real-world use cases for a modular consumer device--like the Sasquatch of meaningful OOP code reuse--is overstated. I think this could work for business use. But the consumer equation is tricky. Phones are fashion. Also phones take a lot of abuse.

jacquesm 13y ago

The first time I saw a modular phone was long ago (2000) in the lab of a very large hardware company where they had a prototype from a start-up they'd invested in. It was made like a deck of cards, cpu, display/kbd, battery and cell components could all be swapped out. There even was a camera module for the back. It didn't make it. The main reasons iirc were that people see phones as integrated wholes, that contacts breed failure and that making an integrated phone versus one made out of pieces is simply cheaper. Curious how this one will fare! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks

bane 13y ago
> that contacts breed failure Just like in software, the interfaces are where the complexity lies.

Zigurd 13y ago

I give this about a 5% chance of success, and 1% market share, maybe less, if it does succeed. That's still more than 10 million units per year, so not a failure. But this isn't going to be your next phone. If it falls much below that unit volume, the scheme implodes because the optional components will not find enough of a market to get manufactured. In order to succeed, the internal connectivity scheme needs to not go obsolete over at least two, and preferably three product generations. It also needs to find a market. People still build their own PCs for gaming, for lab automation, and other distinctly minority pursuits. So far, the niche for this product seems to be "people who find the idea attractive but can't articulate an actual need."

blah314 13y ago
If all my module slots can go to batteries, I'll be tempted.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  I think they said at least 2 modules can be used as battery (the larger ones).
- eloisant 13y ago
  Hmm, battery without CPU or storage won't lead you far.
Zak 13y ago
But this isn't going to be your next phone. This is Hacker News, where people are disproportionately far more likely to buy such a thing than the average consumer. I would expect to see the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 significantly overrepresented here as well; the only people I know in person who own them are hackers.
silverlake 13y ago
Drop the screen and add specialty sensors: you've got the Internet of Things.

kevingadd 13y ago

It's a little gross that they seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project and then entirely erased any traces of the original product and its creators. Hopefully that team's still involved and getting compensated...

nodata 13y ago
The Phonebloks creators work for them.
itp 13y ago
From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#Development I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to say they "seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project."
seba_dos1 13y ago
>PhoneBloks >product PhoneBloks was just a "product" of designer's imagination, nothing more. All he did was to think about "LEGO-phone" and make a catchy animation describing the idea - the idea that wasn't even unique or new, as similar ones (together with 3D-printed or homemade cases, which were later actually realized) were already appearing few years ago on Openmoko mailing lists triggered by GTA04 motherboard upgrade for Neo Freerunner.
auganov 13y ago
Was watching the live stream of the Ara conference yesterday and they explicitly talked about PhoneBloks a bit and even acknowledged that it has more public recognition. They also link to them - projectara.com/more.

id 13y ago

I really don't think phones will stay the way they are for decades. And modular phones definetely won't bear up for decades. At some point every piece of the phone will have been exchanged, making it a completely new phone.

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
Is that a new phone though? invents the question of the philosopher's modular mobile phone
- id 13y ago
  The ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that raises the exact same question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_change
  - 3rd3 13y ago
    Solution: People leave out the extra information that a part was replaced, an error which becomes obvious at this edge case.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    I love that that Wikipedia article references Sugababes - a British pop band which has changed entire line up over it's existence (begging the question is it still the same band).

sdfx 13y ago

I think John Gruber over at Daring Fireball said it best: "I remain highly skeptical that a modular design can compete in a product category where size, weight, and battery life are at such a premium. Even if they can bring something to market, why would any normal person be interested in a phone like this?" http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/04/15/project-ara http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/04/15/project-ara

higherpurpose 13y ago
He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.
- supercoder 13y ago
  He's not suggesting there a no advantages , just that the ones that it does provide won't be enough to compete against non modular phones.
- skywhopper 13y ago
  You've misread his statement. He sees the benefit, but points out that the tradeoffs will be the main areas of competition among smartphones: size, weight, battery life. All three will be worse in a modular phone. You'll also get less for your money overall. Not to mention that having to choose among components just adds an additional layer of option stress that most consumers don't want. Sure, there's a market for a modular phone, but it's not going to seriously compete against the Galaxy or the iPhone in the mass market.
  - zheshishei 13y ago
    >Not to mention that having to choose among components just adds an additional layer of option stress that most consumers don't want. I think consumers actually like a little choice in their products now. I mean, take a look at the apple laptop website. Also, I could imagine vendors offering different phone presets (e.g. battery life, photo-taking, media consumption) and then letting the customer further customize it if they want.

higherpurpose 13y ago

If you read Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution [1] book (sequel to Innovator's Dilemma), you'll see him talk about "integration" and "disintegration" (basically the modularization of a product or market). So in the early days of a new market/category of product, the products are highly integrated, for several reasons. One is that the market is still new, so there isn't much of an "ecosystem" to begin with. Another is that the company with the "first mover's advantage" wants to keep stuff proprietary as much as possible, and another is that the product still kind of "sucks" in some areas (camera, battery life, in early days of the iPhone for example - compared to the traditional competition). So they need to make everything work as tightly as possible, to squeeze all the possible optimization out of it. But eventually, the market becomes mature, the ecosystem grows, and the products become "good enough" for most people. So much of that extreme optimization or need to keep everything proprietary and in-house isn't needed anymore, and you actually start getting some advantages from the modularization of the market, such as buying a better modem than you can make from a "modem company", and so on. For a while I wasn't sure this was going to happen to the smartphone market (ignoring the fact that there has been an increasing trend towards customization through colors and whanot), because for one the smartphone is a very tighly put together product, and it's hard to imagine how it could've been separated into a dozen different pieces without being junk, and two, for a while the trend was towards increasing "closeness" of devices, rather than openness. But it seems it's going to happen, and ARA looks just about right (I wasn't a big fan of the Phonebloks pin-model). Still, even if the strategy here is "correct", and most likely on the right side of history, Google will still need to excel at execution, and make sure using such a phone gives very few disadvantages compared to a regular phone, but many more advantages (being able to use whatever camera you want, without buying a $700 phone every year, and so on). Otherwise, people could be turned off by the initial version, and then it will be a lot harder to convince them what a good idea this is. But for now I'm optimistic. [1] - http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful-ebook/dp/B00E257S7C/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1397650807&sr=8-1&keywords=innovator%27s+solution http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustainin...

andosa 13y ago
> So in the early days of a new market/category of product, the products are highly integrated Not sure about this one, seems like the opposite to me. Twenty years ago, PC's were very modular, and it was very common to add/upgrade a sound card, memory, cpu, video card etc. Fast forward to now, and for the most common computing devices (think tablets and smartphones), there is almost zero modularity or upgradability. Even with current PC's (i.e. mostly laptops), it's increasingly limited. The same trend is apparent in other similar technology. For example with analog TV, people could add a PAL block if their TV was NTSC or SECAM. Upgrading your car used to be significantly easier etc.

CHY872 13y ago

Yeah this is probably just one of Google's projects where they try and make a device that totally uses the concept, realise that most of it's pretty bad and redo it with a device that uses it for the single part that worked. The cynic in me says 'replaceable battery' but I'd like to see replaceable SOC.

josefresco 13y ago
Screen and battery are the two most common complaints/issues with current phones. Simply allowing consumers to buy and swap these two parts would go a long way.

Zak 13y ago

I find this interesting in contrast to Nexus devices. Two or three years ago, most Android phones had SD cards and removable batteries. These features have been conspicuously absent from recent Nexus phones in spite of their appeal to the power-user and developer markets who are among the most likely to want such features. I hope it gets some traction. I'm seeing a lot of sameness in high-spec Android phones, and something like this might help manufacturers learn what kinds of variations might sell without having to take the risk of mass-producing and marketing a new model. P.S. - if any manufacturers are reading this, I want a high-spec Android phone the size of an iPhone. My Nexus 5 is somewhat uncomfortable in my pocket and too hard to use one-handed due to its size.

psbp 13y ago
Moto X.
- Zak 13y ago
  I'm not sure what part of my comment you're responding to, but I don't think the Moto X is a good response to anything I said. It doesn't have removable storage. It doesn't have a removable battery. With a 4.7" screen, it's much bigger than an iPhone.
  - mikeevans 13y ago
    Have you seen how big it is next to an iPhone? Pretty close in physical size, despite the screen. http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/142861-image/Apple-iPhone-5s-vs-Motorola-Moto-X-001.jpg http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/reviews/142861-image/Appl...
    - Zak 13y ago
      My mother owns a Moto X, bought on my recommendation. It is much closer in width to my Nexus 5 than it is to the iPhone and barely more comfortable for me to use one-handed than my Nexus 5. The difference in width is apparent in the photograph you linked. I commend Motorola for an excellent job eliminating non-screen area on the front of the Moto X. It's a very space-efficient device in that regard, but my complaint is about reaching all areas of a touchscreen with my thumb while holding it in one hand, and nothing fixes that like a smaller touchscreen.

AndrewDucker 13y ago

If one of the modules can be a keyboard, then I know a fair few people who will buy one...

mike-cardwell 13y ago
Sign me up
Slackwise 13y ago
The keyboard is the module I want. I used my T-Mobile G2 until it died a month ago, and had to do an emergency replacement, which ended up being a Nexus 5. I'm going absolutely insane not being able to just type without thinking about it. When you have to think about your input and often correct it, you are no longer able to simply stream your thoughts, and each micro-interruption is actually quite a distraction from getting things done. It's frustrating.
sept 13y ago
Keyboard is one of the modules. And hot-swap battery. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCXOXQ0f7c&feature=youtu.be&a= http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCXOXQ0f7c&feature=youtu.be&a=

LarryMade2 13y ago

Yeah, right. I remember computers built in the 90s and 2000s, touting their modular construction and never having to buy a new system again. I wonder if those machines are still in operation? I think what would guarantee longevity is something that is rock-solid good, inexpensive, repairable, and easy to develop on. I'm thinking of track records of computers like the Commodore 64, iMac, or in vehicles like the beetle, video game consoles, ipod, iphone etc.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
Pretty much this. You've got a backbone and some modules, but within a year the second generation of the same backbone and modules will be released, probably sized differently, different i/o, etc, because time simply won't stand still when it comes to devices. It'd be more marketable as a device with easily replaceable components, as mentioned above; easily replacing a screen or battery would be convenient for the more clumsy amongst us.
qwerta 13y ago
I think socket A was good example. Some motherboards could accommodate Duron @ 600 Mhz and Athlon XP 3200+
pessimizer 13y ago
>I remember computers built in the 90s and 2000s, touting their modular construction and never having to buy a new system again. Did these actually exist as a specific product, or are you just referring to all computers that weren't made by Apple?
bane 13y ago
You mean, pretty much any computer not made by Apple? Sure, I still have my home-rolled desktop from 7 years ago. I just put together a new machine earlier this year I expect to get at least that much life out of. I don't even buy top-spec parts, just good price/performance ratios for each part and cobble it together. And if something breaks I can fix it myself. It's not too technical and not too hard to do. About as complicated as making a full dinner with main course, two side dishes and a dessert. On the flip side, every other machine I've had that was closed, mostly laptops, but I'm thinking of my C64, and my Coco2, when the smallest piece died on those things, right into the trash they went. There's literally nothing you can do to fix them that doesn't involve an engineering degree and a lab.

bausson 13y ago

There is a market, or should I say: there are markets: * people who often broke their screens (my current boss is at 3 screens in 2 years, and counting) * enthusiast, early adopters, developpers,... * There is probably a good way to market it in developing countries too. I would love having that phone, even more with a firefoxOS running on it. Having that plateform with open hardware specifications would be a huge boon for it to become a viable ecosystem. I could see firefoxOS and windows phone boarding it quite easily if it take. PS: whereas specifications are open or not, IDK at the moment, not a lot of reliable information being available. Wishful thinking on my part I suppose. Still hoping.

netcan 13y ago

A musing about the aesthetic of modular: My first 21st century "gadget" (for some obviously arbitrary definition of the term) was an ipod nano. I'm not very sensitive to the niceness of things in general so I was pretty surprised at how much I liked how it looked and felt in my hands. It was, cold metallic, small, sleek and completely solid. It had no give in it at all and felt like a magic rock. The solidness of it made it feel futuristic. I find that I like my SSD laptop a lot more than the old HDD one for similar reasons. I think it has to do with it not revealing anything about how it works. I imagine artifacts of the future continuing along these lines. Impenetrable to analysis by the naked A solid mass of synthetic minerals arranged in a very precise way so that electrons are precisely directed this way or that way. But to the naked eye, there is no cause and effect beyond the minimal input and output. On the opposite side, I can get a lot of enjoyment from messing around with something like a foot-treadle loom or 18th century brass navigation instruments. Even just looking at them is fun. They are complicated enough to be very clever and interesting. Too clever to invent yourself. But, they are still simple enough to understand using your eyes. You can get an "aha!" from seeing the flying shuttle work on a loom. The objects themselves being so common in mythology also adds to the flavor. You can see the incredible potential of adding more gears and levers. It's an accessible cleverness that you can experience pretty directly. I find it fascinating that space cowboy fiction & steampunk exist. First, future tense nostalgia is an interesting concept. Second, I think it shows a kind of longing for objects that are both futuristic but understandable. The loom is obviously a human artifact. The ipod is something we intellectually understand to be an artifact, but emotionally it doesn't feel like human one. A magic object doesn't hint at its workings. Beyond the practical advantages of a modular device, I think there is a steampunk-esque appeal to the idea. We could weld together a brass spaceship using an energy crystal to power the electron sail (both naturally obtained by barter or pilage ).

anigbrowl 13y ago
You are the sort of person who would enjoy using modular synthesizers. * Not responsible for possible bankruptcy/ divorce/ loss of employment resulting from acting on above advice
- 13y ago

evanmoran 13y ago

This is absolutely the right direction, but not in the way you think. This shouldn't be branded as a phone -- size and look matter too much. It should be branded the tool of the future, designed for people people in the field: electricians / construction workers / scientists / tinkerers. Let me plug in an altimeter, leveler, or multimeter. That is what is missing on my iPhone, and this is the first thing I've seen modular enough to pull it off. And, yes, I've been thinking Tricorder this whole time=).

rch 13y ago
I'm curious to see what I will be able to do with the interconnect myself. For instance, could I rig something up to hook a couple of modules to my laptop or car?
- yarri 13y ago
  This question was asked at the tech conference yesterday, and they may clarify it in the MDK [0] but the project team seemed to downplay this aspect, preferring to pitch the idea of a "low cost mobile phone for the next billion users." Still, the modules can be emitters (ie., BT/ZigBe modules) although they were unclear about how module developers would get these certified. And I guess no one is stopping you from adding cables to a module, but the UniPro based and M-PHY current specs wouldn't get you very far... 10cm cable perhaps? [0] http://www.projectara.com/mdk/ http://www.projectara.com/mdk/
stinos 13y ago
Actually this thing is not entirley new and such tools already exist: there are enough arduino-style boards out there that allow you to create a phone already, as well as a bunch of other useful things: get a gps modules, a gprs module, a keyboard module and a screen module and off you go.

enscr 13y ago

People are viewing this project as a 'lego' phone that sounds great in theory but doesn't charm practically. However manufacturers can take a middle ground approach where future electronics slowly move towards hot swappable components. Upgrading & replacing defective parts shouldn't require a screw driver and perhaps as easy as plugging in a USB cable. When I'm buying a high end phone & spending $600, I'd want it to last 5-6+ years. However the current ones typically stay relevant for barely 2 years and the residual value is below $200. How about a phone that I'm not scared to drop because if something breaks, I can easily swap out a new LCD, ofcourse at a reasonable cost. Many users like me would be willing to sacrifice the form factor slightly to get the ability to make my device last longer. However all this goes against how manufacturers make money i.e. make you buy new product frequently & charge an arm & a leg for repairs.

netcan 13y ago
I like this train of thought. I doubt they can make a good, commercially viable phone straight away. If they just could release a backbone and a starter set of modules at a nexus7-ish price point, that might get things going. They need to get this thing into some people's hands (especially potential module developers) and see what they can do with it. Also, selling this as a way of long lived phone sounds like a terrible USB. I would put 'easily repairable' above it but the real value is the potential module ecosystem. Without that it's just some form of cheaper and that's a hard promise to keep. Phone is a relatively small part of what smartphones are. Is the phone a module here? It would be interesting to know what all the starter set modules do. It's disappointed to see all the cynicism on this thread. Commercial viability aside (come on, who knows), this is a cool fun project with interesting possibilities for making hardware innovation accessible.
anigbrowl 13y ago
There are other models, like sell the razor cheap and charge more for the blades, which can support a product ecosystem, albeit a smaller one than that for grooming products. Consider that the FOB price for replacement cellphone cameras is under $5 in quantities of $100. The hardware is cheap, the labor of installing it into a phone that needs repair is not. But if you make it user-installable (as here), you can sell the exact same camera for maybe $20-30, with only a minimal increase in the cost of production for the modular package. So this could work out quite nicely for component manufacturers by giving them a small additional revenue stream from enthusiast/hobby buyers. All those people complaining that it won't be competitive with other phones for consumer dollars are totally missing the point. Of course consumers will continue to prefer all-in-one products from brand name manufacturers like Apple and Samsung, for the same reason that most consumers want a car that Just Works rather one that requires them to be an amateur mechanic. And yet, there's a thriving retail business in auto parts, because a lot of people do like to hack on their cars or carry out their own repairs. And likewise, there's a market for modular phones among hackers, engineers, high school and college students, and all sorts of other niches, who want flexibility but don't necessarily want to go down the Arduino route with soldering and building their own cases and PCBs. Simple example: stick two camera modules into one of these things, and you have a super cheap 3d camera platform. This will be absolutely huge in the developing world where utility >> convenience or aesthetics.

ctdonath 13y ago

As technology continues to shrink more functionality into less space, it crosses the threshold where human limits require the device be at least this big (whatever that size/shape minimum is). A screen can only be so small before it's practically unreadable. A touch area must provide at least so much space between tap targets and accommodate "fat fingers". The box of a phone must be big enough to hold comfortably to an ear. A small matchbox-size device would just plain be too awkward to use. Seems Apple initiated the unchangeable phone (no swappable battery, extremely tight/solid tolerances) in part to get all that core functionality inside a box that small. Sufficient battery required XYZ volume; making it removable wasted a nontrivial amount of that, affecting talk time & durability. Now that core functionality can be smaller than the minimum usable size, including battery life acceptable to most users, there's some space again to "waste" on components like pluggable interconnects, module packaging (so a part is not fully exposed when removed), air gaps, etc. "This here's a good axe. It's had nine handles and three heads." "This is the last phone I bought. It's had nine batteries, three CPUs, two displays, four radios, ..."

abruzzi 13y ago

Once upon a time, when I was younger, I felt very strongly that I needed a computer with everything replaceable. I wanted to replace a CPU when it got too slow, new graphics card, upgradable RAM, storage, etc. But I found that in the end while I'd make small upgrades, I still replaced my computers at close to the same rate. That because some standard that was built into the old machine was no longer fast enough or wide enough for newer uses, or an interconnect standard changed (think ISA, to PCI, to PCI-X, to PCI-e) The other reason is while i could upgrade some parts, I couldn't upgrade all the parts, and pretty soon those parts were now two or three years old. They were no longer as reliable as a brand new system. I wonder with these modular phone ideas, if we're looking at the beige box PC industry all over? And whether it will be a good fit to mobile or whether you'll buy your modular system in a year, and then find in another two years that there is a new modular interconnect version without backwards compatibility, and gradually you won't be able to find modules that work with your current frame, so you have to replace that, and maybe the some of your old modules don't work with the new frame, so you have to replace them at the same time. Like a lot of beige bok PC geek, you'll end up with a drawer of old modules in a drawer that you hardly ever find a need for, but you cant bring yourself to throw them away unless they're actually broke. The smart person will just buy all new modules when they replace the frame (that what most people did when they replaced their beige box, because why upgrade but still carry over that old junky graphics card). Pretty soon your at a point where the primary benefit of modularity in not upgrading pieces, but the ability to spec exactly the phone you want when buying. But in reality there are a lot of phones on the market now, and you can come pretty close. I don't know that this will be the case, but its how I'd bet it would end up playing out.

netcan 13y ago
I think the PC analogy is wrong. I also framing this as money saving option is wrong. The potential is in flexibility. Phones are small. Tradeoffs are substantial. Some people would prefer 50% more battery life at the expense of the camera or weight. Maybe someone can make an e-ink screen that will double battery life. Some people might want to spend $800 on the camera. IMO, that's the benefit. Commercially, I see this as something can keep buying add ons to. The market of people who buy 2-3 pricey covers for an ipad is legit. People like their phones and add ons might sell because people will just want to buy new things for them. In that sense, maybe this will extend life a little or partially as you take some old modules with you, but that's not the point. The point is can flexibility let people make a phone they like better and enjoy doing it.

gcb0 13y ago

heh. you guy really have any hope? just count the number of devices google and its nexus partners released without even a sd card slot! motorola too since the google devices started. the market demands that fast obsolency and they are evil now. the only thing holding back the nexus one as a strong daily phone is that it have no space for more than 5 modern apps. it does if you hack android 2.3 to install apps on the SD... anyway. i wouldnt hold my breath. this is being done just to fail and harm other people pursuing it honestly. cynic much? probably. but i am mostly stating facts. how much does a sd slot saved in costs from your $600 phone? nothing. hiw many years its lack cut from the device longevity? more than half. edit: plus the feature they advertise more is electro magnets! on a device where the biggest concern is battery... and which will have a case anyway that could hold everything together in case they used simple mechanical latches.

koalaman 13y ago

I wish someone had done this for PCs 20 years ago.

stackcollision 13y ago
Can you clarify what you mean? Maybe not 20, but 15 years ago my dad was mucking around in the guts of our family computer, performing his own upgrades. By the time we got rid of that thing the only original component was the case. And nowadays you can order any piece of hardware you want off the internet and slap it in.

bane 13y ago

I'd actually love it if this idea extended far enough to let me double my "phone" as an impromptu laptop/desktop. I know that we can use a bluetooth keyboard or whatever and kind of simulate things. But I'd love to carry around a single computing device that I can drop into a cradle at home and it's using my two big desktop monitors and nice keyboard/mouse, and when out and about, head into a coffee shop and swap the screen out for a larger screen and keyboard, and then head onto the subway and just swap the screen back and use it like a phone. Then end of the day, head to the gym and swap out a few parts and have it just play music for me while I work out. Head out for a hike on the weekend and configure it like the Gym, but put in a better GPS unit and a bigger battery or something. Go to the store and swap out the GPS unit for a barcode scanner so I can comparison shop a bit. If something breaks, I can fix it myself. Go home and plug it into an HDMI port and watch movies or play games or something. Want to read a book? Swap out the screen for an e-ink screen. Going on a trip? swap in the GPS device, big battery and the Nokia camera module so I can use my nice lenses and find my way to the sites. Swap the screen for the bigger screen later so I can review and edit my photos for the day. I could trade my notebook, camera, desktop, console, media devices, mp3 player, e-book reader and tablet in entirely. But all my data is present for me and I can work on it, context appropriate to the interfaces I have available at that moment. I wouldn't mind having a few bits and parts floating around my backpack if it gave me the flexibility to do that kind of thing.

scott_karana 13y ago
The Ubuntu Edge was designed around a similar multi-purpose idea, though it wasn't physically modular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edge
smorrow 13y ago
I like the modularity idea, I don't know if I'd want to be swapping components five times a day though. If the idea is just to have the same files/data on all your "different" devices, I think I like the idea of running a central fileserver with that stuff on it, and having separate phone, desktop, etc, that each do two or three things and do them well, and they all mount the fileserver, which has a much storage as you want, gets backed up regularly, is where indexing happens, is where long-running downloads happen. and everything mounting that gets the same files. oh, and a server is less likely to go missing or stolen or soaked. Your idea is the simplest way to preserve application state between "different" devices, my idea is the best way to preserve saved-file state (and only that) between using different devices. Your idea has been done to some extent by the Motorola Lapdock, but I don't actually know anything about it.

drakaal 13y ago

Raise your hand if you bought an "upgradable" mother board in the 286 and 386 days.... Do you still have it? I have a computer that still uses some of the same screws that my 486 used. For a long time I kept the original hard disk spinning even though I didn't store stuff on it... But when IDE connectors went away I stopped bothering with keeping it for nostalgia. Even my case is no longer compatible, the power supply stopped being compatible long ago. Some of this is "advancements" some of it is just that manufactures want to sell you new stuff. Houses are about the only thing that are modular and you can say you will only need to buy one... The house I grew up in is nearly 200 years old. So far it hasn't needed to be replaced to do incompatibility.

joshuapants 13y ago

As someone mourning the fall of the full-qwerty physical keyboard phone (yes there are the new BB phones, but by the next time I upgrade I anticipate that BB will be dead), this gives me hope. There may not be enough people who want them for manufacturers to make whole phones, but maybe there are enough to support a market in quality keyboard modules.

fiatjaf 13y ago

Where are all those comments, blog posts and experts' analyses saying Phonebloks could never work in this world?

eric_cc 13y ago

This is not marketed at me. My phone buying thought process: Does this phone have the software I care about? Are apps tested to work with my exact device? Sold. I do not want to spend a split second thinking about modules or RAM or anything and I'm a very technical person. I cannot imagine my mom dealing with this crap. What is the market here? I would pay a premium to NOT deal with modules.

anigbrowl 13y ago
I will certainly get one. Think about it like a little prototyping computer platform. I don't know if I'd make it my main phone for the reasons you describe, but I would definitely like a portable battery-powered computing device with modular capabilities, like a little Raspberry Pi that can go in my pocket instead of being stuck on the desk.
stackcollision 13y ago
Once this is out, you are paying a premium to not deal with modules by not getting one. It's a $50 phone you can swap components in and out of as upgrades become available. To me, that's infinitely better than buying a new $300 smartphone every other year. But there's also a second appeal. Right now, phones are impenetrable black-boxes. You get what the manufacturer thinks you want. The reason I think a modular phone will become very popular is the same reason the AR-15 is the most popular gun in America: because you can play with it. You can swap parts in and out depending on what you need. "Oh, I'm going hiking today? Better stick my extra-big battery and wide-field camera into my phone." "Apple's putting a new zillion-byte SSD in the iPhone 9Q? Well good thing I can just buy the zillion-byte module for my modular phone instead of having to buy a whole new one." And a million other examples.