9 ms·

USB-C and Modular Smartphones Are the End-Game for Convergence

162 points by mmastrac 12y ago

howeyc 12y ago
Maybe it's just me, but it looks to me like things have been going the other "way", all your documents synced to a "cloud" and providing various interfaces to it (phone/tablet/pc...) What this looks like is all your data on your phone's hd, and "docking" to other form factors to compute/play with the data locally. I really hope we go this route, but I'm not holding my breath.
- gaara87 12y ago
  I think the focus is more on the fact that there is hardware and protocol which will enable data transfer at that bandwidth and speed. I completely agree that everything is going into the cloud but that is usually personlized data. What this would allow is a massive pipeline of data transfer between actual hardware. For instance,a range of hardwares like a high res camera to maybe ssds or possibly holographic data storages, etc etc.
- swalsh 12y ago
  I don't think it's about where your documents are, I think it's more about where your local CPU is. Your documents will almost certainly be in the cloud. However then you have two radios, two CPU's, two sticks of RAM. I think the idea of convergence is merging your phone, your PC, and any other device with a CPU into one device. The data will still be in the cloud. The benefit is if you want to write something. A keyboard, and large monitor is better. If you want a phone, the smaller form factor is better. You want a better camera, you buy lenses... not a body. etc. There's no good reason to have a separate CPU in each of these devices. When you can fit a CPU that's as powerful as a laptop in a phone, why not just have it in the phone, and only have one computer? Then take the CPU out of the laptop, and plug in your phone when you need it.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    A mid-to-high end ARM SoC is $20 these days, there's really no reason to NOT have a CPU in anything that has a monitor in it. Especially since the CPU in a phone has to deal with a power/thermal profile that most laptops have a little more leeway on. It's such a false economy.
    - swalsh 12y ago
      there's so much more then a CPU though. You still need some storage, radios (bluetooth/wifi/4g), connections for the radios etc. Plus, if as technology gets better you have to upgrade each device independently. Wouldn't it be nice if every two years you could upgrade your phone AND your laptop for the price of one device?
      - JetSpiegel 12y ago
        A phone uses about 5W, a laptop 50W and a ultra-high-end desktop 500W. That's two orders of magnitude of difference, no way the CPU can be the same for all that.
        semi-extrinsic 12y ago
        Exactly this. My ultra-highend desktop at work has a 1200W PSU.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      It's still kind of nice that it should become possible, with pretty much no fussing, to plug a phone into a TV (or any other display with USB input), have it charge and also take over the display. As you say, the hardware savings aren't very interesting, but simpler, better interop looks like it will be.
    - thinkmassive 12y ago
      ARM's big.LITTLE architecture could feasibly bridge the gap between mobile and portable devices. I recently acquired a ODroid XU and a bunch of peripherals to serve as a modular mobile computer. Right now it complements my laptop and phone, but eventually I could see it replacing both by getting a small "tablet" that's basically a display/speaker/mic and a pico projector + tiny wireless keyboard. All of these components already exist, but the LCD and projector are currently out of my price range for what's essentially a fun experiment. There are even battery banks available for around $99 that can charge USB plus many laptop models, and can be used while charging (something most cheaper USB battery packs don't do). The biggest issue will probably be keeping the thing powered all day. In the medium term I can even see the possibility of a shift away from ultrabooks and toward more modular laptops, since the giant battery needs to live somewhere. Then you could have a mobile device tethered wirelessly that doesn't need the same level of components (except maybe GPU) and the battery can be reduced further.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I get the 'vision' here but not sure I buy it yet. I'm still wondering if we will have a radio brick that you can use with either a 'tablet' type device, a laptop like device, or a phone like device.
- dvanduzer 12y ago
  If anything, BlueTooth Low Energy is a better candidate to bring about this vision.
- stevewilhelm 12y ago
  > I'm still wondering if we will have a radio brick that you can use with either a 'tablet' type device, a laptop like device, or a phone like device. Seems like the mobile carriers would be very much against this. They are currently charging per device.
  - derefr 12y ago
    I have a radio brick: http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-en/products/mobile_broadband/one_touch_y580.html http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-en/products/mobile_bro... It doesn't work very well, but I think that's mostly A. bad indoor service on the network band I'm using it on, and B. lack of 4G. When it does work, though, it basically does the same thing a smartphone does: serves a wi-fi hotspot, and acts as a 3G modem over USB.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    I agree they would be against it, they are after all fighting any and all forms of disintermediation, the last thing they want to to be just a seller of 'airtime minutes'
- peteretep 12y ago
  I no longer buy a SIM for my iPhone when I go abroad, I buy a SIM for my Mifi device: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiFi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiFi - the one I have is a bit smaller than a Nokia 8210 used to be and weighs nothing.
blendo 12y ago
The capability for power distribution is really interesting: 2 A at 5 V, 5 A at 12 V, and 5 A at 20 V. Assuming some sort of "intelligent" power distribution center, you could plug your monitor into one port, your cpu/memory/ssd into another, and even digital audio (DAC and powered speakers) into a third, with only a single AC power cord needed.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Wait, USB-C doesn't let you charge smartphones faster than at 2A? So it won't be any faster than what you can do right now? Why doesn't it let you charge at 10A? Is it because small batteries can't take so much energy so fast? What's the deal with those "charge half of your battery in 15 minutes" statements we see for some of the recent devices?
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    Type-C works with USB-PD. USB-PD can negotiate up to 100W of power delivery via 20V@5A. Increasing the amperage over 5A makes the connection more dangerous and increases the cabling requirements. If your smart phone or tablet implement USB-PD and can handle 100W of power then it could charge at 20V@5A VERY quickly.
  - Sanddancer 12y ago
    Battery charging is asymptotical. In the beginning, they accept quite a bit of charge current, and thus can charge quickly. As you get closer to fully charged, the battery cannot safely have as much current pumped into it, so you have to back off on the current as you get closer and closer to fully charged. Bigger batteries, like in laptops, have multiple cells, to attain higher voltages, so that extra current can be directed to each cell. So, in short, no, USB-C won't let you charge phones all that much faster than at 2A
- lsaferite 12y ago
  If you are looking to use the DP over Type=C ability, you'd likely have a monitor with a hub instead. Reason being the Alternate Modes cannot traverse hubs, it's PtP only.
ocdtrekkie 12y ago
I always felt the Atrix and this sort of modular design was the future. Google killed it heavily with their cloud-synced devices push, and Sundar Pichai killing Android's laptop development project. I love the idea of Project Ara, but with Google taking it from Motorola, I fear it's going to be locked down into proprietary services like Google does with all their products. If they can get things like processing power to be modular, so you can have your apps and data on your phone, but be able to plug in and use desktop power when plugged into a larger station, that'd be when that sort of solution would really take off. I want everything on my phone, but for that phone to access desktop level UI and processing capability when I'm at my desk.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Meh, the Android laptop stuff was long dead before Pichai. Rubin was even stonewalling extending Android into tablets back in the day by insisting that Android was for phones. And Atrix ended up going nowhere, because Motorola could not keep their designers in check. end result was that no two phones could share a dock, as the ports where spaced differently. their last, "universal", dock basically had two rubberized wires that the user had to manually fit each time. As for Ara being locked down, you may be right. So far it seems that modules goes through a Google storefront, and they have yet to confirm or deny that trading used modules will be an option. Never mind that it seems Google will the lone provider of the endoskeletons. I find myself somewhat reminded of the early days of the PC, back when it was the IBM PC. I wonder if there will be a clean room endo firmware offered...
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    Sure, the Webtop design had implementation problems, but the concept was solid. I think it's biggest deathblow was that it was released before Android supported large screens, so it was gimped to a version of Linux with only a couple pre-installed apps, rather than the tablet UI Webtop later could provide, after the concept was already killed in future models. Yeah, the Google that is making Project Ara is a long way away from the Google that embraced open protocols and standards, and open sourced platforms like Android and Chromium.
CHY872 12y ago
The Lytro example seems very dubious. Their solution has a lot of additional hardware in it - you wouldn't be able to package it into a Project Ara type device without having some kind of backpack anyway. From their point of view, it'd then be cheaper to also include the CPU, screen etc - a more unified hardware base to build software for.
dsg42 12y ago
Yeah, modular smartphones are definitely not the "End-Game for Convergence." Just because you think they're cool does not mean they will dominate the market in the way you want them to.
jfernandez 12y ago
I wonder if Apple will migrate over to USB-C even on iPhones and iPads...
hengheng 12y ago
Can USB 3.1 host a GPU? If so, I'm really excited for the next Display generation.
- fuzzywalrus 12y ago
  Considering ThunderBolt 2 isn't quite up to snuff for PCIe enclosures at bidirectional of 10 GBps, USB 3.1 isn't going to be enough just on bandwidth terms.
  - hengheng 12y ago
    Not at all. I'm using a GPU via ExpressCard with a single lane. 10 GBit/s is plenty enough. The question is whether it DMAs correctly, and whether it's actively disabled by intel again (as with Thunderbolt).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
chrisdotcode 12y ago
People who are interested in Modular phones can also check out Phoneblok's website[0], which I believe to be the people who started Project Ara. [0] https://phonebloks.com/ https://phonebloks.com/
tlrobinson 12y ago
Project Ara is a cool idea, but I don't know if it's really practical for a device that needs to compete on size. A single motherboard with chips soldered to it will always be thinner than multiple modules which each require their own case and interconnects between them. And sure, you might be able to upgrade individual modules, but even the interconnect will become outdated after a few years. I'd love to be proven wrong though, it's a cool concept.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Agreed. If we look at PCs I think we can conclude the vast majority of them were bought, rather than put together with separate parts by consumers. And that's an extremely modular system. I built all my own computers since I was a kid and while I've been tech-savvy, I'm very far from a hardcore tech guy especially when younger. It was just so easy, installing most things is as easy as plugging a charger in a socket or screwing some bolts in. Yet, while you could easily save several hundred dollars by doing it and build it to your liking, a minority of consumers did in the past 15 years. This notion that we'd all suddenly want to do that for phones seems to me perhaps a little bit unfounded. Especially when you consider that there was 0 engineering involved in building your own custom computer from different parts (unless you took a deep dive into custom cooling rigs or mini towers). i.e. you generally bought a mid sized tower and put in your parts. Space was barely a concern and there weren't any space related tradeoffs. On mobile devices however, space is everything. Bigger screen? Won't fit in the pocket, or it'll be too heavy, and it'll draw more power. Bigger battery? Less space for the CPU or storage, or a camera module. Not only are companies (with this being their core competency) generally better equipped to make these decisions, but they're also much better equipped to minimize the tradeoffs. They can engineer a camera module and a bigger battery, not just by engineering a better camera/battery module separately, but by engineering them to fit into a smaller space together. All the soldering-type stuff I like to complain about has, beyond business reasons, genuine engineering reasons, too. Add to that the fact that smartphones aren't quite a fashion statement (in the way that creating a modular smartphone would be like choosing what clothes to wear), but are in a way a reputational statement (in that people do like thin, slick looking phones), I don't see how modular phones can really take off, with few people caring that you can customize them for fashion, and most people preferring the non-modular phone that's as thin and slick as you can get, because it's all soldered on and sitting in a unibody. And none of this is unique. We tend to prefer the completely designed experience. We don't want to buy separate pieces and construct our own chair or table or our cars. Modularity feels like creating pages from different books and turning it into a story. You don't get the same cohesion. Or going to the golden corral and ordering pasta, a steak, sushi and pie. It doesn't make a good meal no matter how good the individual pieces. A properly designed course around a set of ingredients or a theme is always better, especially when curated by professionals. Does that mean we don't want choice or can't handle it? No. I just think that we find modularity, in a very loose sense of the word, in the product offering. All the different phone manufacturers ARE the modularisation and personalisation of the smartphone. Hell Samsung alone has put out 200 phones. Many vendors do, and quite a few of them experiment. e.g. the phablet was a big experiment that saw a market demand. We've seen battery powerhouses. We've seen tiny-bezel phones with a large chin. We've seen phones with an insane amount of megapixels on the camera, phones built for selfies, phones with a curved display, phones that integrate with digital covers etc. So the choice is really there. In the end I think the flagship products are so well designed that the need for tradeoffs will diminish. In some ways we're already there. Phones have a good enough camera for everything except professional work. Phones come with storage we see on laptops. We've cheapish 'unlimited' data plans. We see insane resolution screens. We see all day battery life. In short, when I buy a flagship phone, I don't really think 'damn wish I could switch out the iPhone camera for more storage, could do it if only my phone were modular'. Battery is still a big point of improvement for me, a tradeoff, but that's about it. It feels by the time Ara could pick up steam, the tradeoffs, like battery, are likely so small (ever more efficient chips, mostly) we probably won't have a big enough demand for different phone configs for different times, enough that we're willing to pay extra for the different extra units, and bear the reduced performance and form factor that a modular system offers over a single fully designed experience. At the end of the day phones are becoming able to do everything, and the personalisation of the phone is all in the software (apps, themes, content), the choice of phone (again, lots of experimentation and catering to niche markets by vendors) and things like cases. I don't really see modularity becoming a big part of that. That having been said, I love that I've been using my PC for 7 years, switching components every now and then. It's a pleasure. It'd be awesome to see how far modular phones could go. It might be one of those things that somehow just works so well and sticks, even if it's not the best system on paper, like say tcp/ip. Looking forward to ara going live for consumers this year.
stephenmm 12y ago
I screamed like a little kid when I read this. I was working on UniPro 6 years ago and thought it was a great idea then. Glad to see it finally coming to market!
soyiuz 12y ago
Modular devices make a lot of theoretical sense. Practically, it is almost impossible to achieve cohesion between large corporate players. Just look at the power tools market. Also, I stopped reading after "revolutionary."
serve_yay 12y ago
Were the connectors really what was holding this back? I would be surprised if it were just that. About the modular phones, super cool idea, but very curious about its feasibility.
Animats 12y ago
There are lots of industrial and commercial devices which could be usefully attached to a smartphone or tablet. Medical diagnostic devices, auto diagnostic readers, and electronic test equipment could all usefully be connected. LabView has a smartphone/tablet interface.[1] None of this is consumer oriented. It's going to be really useful for getting things done with electronics and in industrial and medical environments, but home and office, no. The consumer stuff is going the other way. "One tap to get a ride", says Uber PR. [1] http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/ http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/
- maxerickson 12y ago
  There are $25 Bluetooth-OBDII dongles. They aren't necessarily 100% capable, but they are $25.

162 points by mmastrac 12y ago

Maybe it's just me, but it looks to me like things have been going the other "way", all your documents synced to a "cloud" and providing various interfaces to it (phone/tablet/pc...) What this looks like is all your data on your phone's hd, and "docking" to other form factors to compute/play with the data locally. I really hope we go this route, but I'm not holding my breath.

gaara87 12y ago
I think the focus is more on the fact that there is hardware and protocol which will enable data transfer at that bandwidth and speed. I completely agree that everything is going into the cloud but that is usually personlized data. What this would allow is a massive pipeline of data transfer between actual hardware. For instance,a range of hardwares like a high res camera to maybe ssds or possibly holographic data storages, etc etc.
swalsh 12y ago
I don't think it's about where your documents are, I think it's more about where your local CPU is. Your documents will almost certainly be in the cloud. However then you have two radios, two CPU's, two sticks of RAM. I think the idea of convergence is merging your phone, your PC, and any other device with a CPU into one device. The data will still be in the cloud. The benefit is if you want to write something. A keyboard, and large monitor is better. If you want a phone, the smaller form factor is better. You want a better camera, you buy lenses... not a body. etc. There's no good reason to have a separate CPU in each of these devices. When you can fit a CPU that's as powerful as a laptop in a phone, why not just have it in the phone, and only have one computer? Then take the CPU out of the laptop, and plug in your phone when you need it.
- cwyers 12y ago
  A mid-to-high end ARM SoC is $20 these days, there's really no reason to NOT have a CPU in anything that has a monitor in it. Especially since the CPU in a phone has to deal with a power/thermal profile that most laptops have a little more leeway on. It's such a false economy.
  - swalsh 12y ago
    there's so much more then a CPU though. You still need some storage, radios (bluetooth/wifi/4g), connections for the radios etc. Plus, if as technology gets better you have to upgrade each device independently. Wouldn't it be nice if every two years you could upgrade your phone AND your laptop for the price of one device?
    - JetSpiegel 12y ago
      A phone uses about 5W, a laptop 50W and a ultra-high-end desktop 500W. That's two orders of magnitude of difference, no way the CPU can be the same for all that.
      - semi-extrinsic 12y ago
        Exactly this. My ultra-highend desktop at work has a 1200W PSU.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It's still kind of nice that it should become possible, with pretty much no fussing, to plug a phone into a TV (or any other display with USB input), have it charge and also take over the display. As you say, the hardware savings aren't very interesting, but simpler, better interop looks like it will be.
  - thinkmassive 12y ago
    ARM's big.LITTLE architecture could feasibly bridge the gap between mobile and portable devices. I recently acquired a ODroid XU and a bunch of peripherals to serve as a modular mobile computer. Right now it complements my laptop and phone, but eventually I could see it replacing both by getting a small "tablet" that's basically a display/speaker/mic and a pico projector + tiny wireless keyboard. All of these components already exist, but the LCD and projector are currently out of my price range for what's essentially a fun experiment. There are even battery banks available for around $99 that can charge USB plus many laptop models, and can be used while charging (something most cheaper USB battery packs don't do). The biggest issue will probably be keeping the thing powered all day. In the medium term I can even see the possibility of a shift away from ultrabooks and toward more modular laptops, since the giant battery needs to live somewhere. Then you could have a mobile device tethered wirelessly that doesn't need the same level of components (except maybe GPU) and the battery can be reduced further.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I get the 'vision' here but not sure I buy it yet. I'm still wondering if we will have a radio brick that you can use with either a 'tablet' type device, a laptop like device, or a phone like device.

dvanduzer 12y ago
If anything, BlueTooth Low Energy is a better candidate to bring about this vision.
stevewilhelm 12y ago
> I'm still wondering if we will have a radio brick that you can use with either a 'tablet' type device, a laptop like device, or a phone like device. Seems like the mobile carriers would be very much against this. They are currently charging per device.
- derefr 12y ago
  I have a radio brick: http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-en/products/mobile_broadband/one_touch_y580.html http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-en/products/mobile_bro... It doesn't work very well, but I think that's mostly A. bad indoor service on the network band I'm using it on, and B. lack of 4G. When it does work, though, it basically does the same thing a smartphone does: serves a wi-fi hotspot, and acts as a 3G modem over USB.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  I agree they would be against it, they are after all fighting any and all forms of disintermediation, the last thing they want to to be just a seller of 'airtime minutes'
peteretep 12y ago
I no longer buy a SIM for my iPhone when I go abroad, I buy a SIM for my Mifi device: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiFi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiFi - the one I have is a bit smaller than a Nokia 8210 used to be and weighs nothing.

blendo 12y ago

The capability for power distribution is really interesting: 2 A at 5 V, 5 A at 12 V, and 5 A at 20 V. Assuming some sort of "intelligent" power distribution center, you could plug your monitor into one port, your cpu/memory/ssd into another, and even digital audio (DAC and powered speakers) into a third, with only a single AC power cord needed.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Wait, USB-C doesn't let you charge smartphones faster than at 2A? So it won't be any faster than what you can do right now? Why doesn't it let you charge at 10A? Is it because small batteries can't take so much energy so fast? What's the deal with those "charge half of your battery in 15 minutes" statements we see for some of the recent devices?
- lsaferite 12y ago
  Type-C works with USB-PD. USB-PD can negotiate up to 100W of power delivery via 20V@5A. Increasing the amperage over 5A makes the connection more dangerous and increases the cabling requirements. If your smart phone or tablet implement USB-PD and can handle 100W of power then it could charge at 20V@5A VERY quickly.
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  Battery charging is asymptotical. In the beginning, they accept quite a bit of charge current, and thus can charge quickly. As you get closer to fully charged, the battery cannot safely have as much current pumped into it, so you have to back off on the current as you get closer and closer to fully charged. Bigger batteries, like in laptops, have multiple cells, to attain higher voltages, so that extra current can be directed to each cell. So, in short, no, USB-C won't let you charge phones all that much faster than at 2A
lsaferite 12y ago
If you are looking to use the DP over Type=C ability, you'd likely have a monitor with a hub instead. Reason being the Alternate Modes cannot traverse hubs, it's PtP only.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

I always felt the Atrix and this sort of modular design was the future. Google killed it heavily with their cloud-synced devices push, and Sundar Pichai killing Android's laptop development project. I love the idea of Project Ara, but with Google taking it from Motorola, I fear it's going to be locked down into proprietary services like Google does with all their products. If they can get things like processing power to be modular, so you can have your apps and data on your phone, but be able to plug in and use desktop power when plugged into a larger station, that'd be when that sort of solution would really take off. I want everything on my phone, but for that phone to access desktop level UI and processing capability when I'm at my desk.

digi_owl 12y ago
Meh, the Android laptop stuff was long dead before Pichai. Rubin was even stonewalling extending Android into tablets back in the day by insisting that Android was for phones. And Atrix ended up going nowhere, because Motorola could not keep their designers in check. end result was that no two phones could share a dock, as the ports where spaced differently. their last, "universal", dock basically had two rubberized wires that the user had to manually fit each time. As for Ara being locked down, you may be right. So far it seems that modules goes through a Google storefront, and they have yet to confirm or deny that trading used modules will be an option. Never mind that it seems Google will the lone provider of the endoskeletons. I find myself somewhat reminded of the early days of the PC, back when it was the IBM PC. I wonder if there will be a clean room endo firmware offered...
- ocdtrekkie 12y ago
  Sure, the Webtop design had implementation problems, but the concept was solid. I think it's biggest deathblow was that it was released before Android supported large screens, so it was gimped to a version of Linux with only a couple pre-installed apps, rather than the tablet UI Webtop later could provide, after the concept was already killed in future models. Yeah, the Google that is making Project Ara is a long way away from the Google that embraced open protocols and standards, and open sourced platforms like Android and Chromium.

CHY872 12y ago

The Lytro example seems very dubious. Their solution has a lot of additional hardware in it - you wouldn't be able to package it into a Project Ara type device without having some kind of backpack anyway. From their point of view, it'd then be cheaper to also include the CPU, screen etc - a more unified hardware base to build software for.

dsg42 12y ago

Yeah, modular smartphones are definitely not the "End-Game for Convergence." Just because you think they're cool does not mean they will dominate the market in the way you want them to.

jfernandez 12y ago

I wonder if Apple will migrate over to USB-C even on iPhones and iPads...

hengheng 12y ago

Can USB 3.1 host a GPU? If so, I'm really excited for the next Display generation.

fuzzywalrus 12y ago
Considering ThunderBolt 2 isn't quite up to snuff for PCIe enclosures at bidirectional of 10 GBps, USB 3.1 isn't going to be enough just on bandwidth terms.
- hengheng 12y ago
  Not at all. I'm using a GPU via ExpressCard with a single lane. 10 GBit/s is plenty enough. The question is whether it DMAs correctly, and whether it's actively disabled by intel again (as with Thunderbolt).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

chrisdotcode 12y ago

People who are interested in Modular phones can also check out Phoneblok's website[0], which I believe to be the people who started Project Ara. [0] https://phonebloks.com/ https://phonebloks.com/

tlrobinson 12y ago

Project Ara is a cool idea, but I don't know if it's really practical for a device that needs to compete on size. A single motherboard with chips soldered to it will always be thinner than multiple modules which each require their own case and interconnects between them. And sure, you might be able to upgrade individual modules, but even the interconnect will become outdated after a few years. I'd love to be proven wrong though, it's a cool concept.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Agreed. If we look at PCs I think we can conclude the vast majority of them were bought, rather than put together with separate parts by consumers. And that's an extremely modular system. I built all my own computers since I was a kid and while I've been tech-savvy, I'm very far from a hardcore tech guy especially when younger. It was just so easy, installing most things is as easy as plugging a charger in a socket or screwing some bolts in. Yet, while you could easily save several hundred dollars by doing it and build it to your liking, a minority of consumers did in the past 15 years. This notion that we'd all suddenly want to do that for phones seems to me perhaps a little bit unfounded. Especially when you consider that there was 0 engineering involved in building your own custom computer from different parts (unless you took a deep dive into custom cooling rigs or mini towers). i.e. you generally bought a mid sized tower and put in your parts. Space was barely a concern and there weren't any space related tradeoffs. On mobile devices however, space is everything. Bigger screen? Won't fit in the pocket, or it'll be too heavy, and it'll draw more power. Bigger battery? Less space for the CPU or storage, or a camera module. Not only are companies (with this being their core competency) generally better equipped to make these decisions, but they're also much better equipped to minimize the tradeoffs. They can engineer a camera module and a bigger battery, not just by engineering a better camera/battery module separately, but by engineering them to fit into a smaller space together. All the soldering-type stuff I like to complain about has, beyond business reasons, genuine engineering reasons, too. Add to that the fact that smartphones aren't quite a fashion statement (in the way that creating a modular smartphone would be like choosing what clothes to wear), but are in a way a reputational statement (in that people do like thin, slick looking phones), I don't see how modular phones can really take off, with few people caring that you can customize them for fashion, and most people preferring the non-modular phone that's as thin and slick as you can get, because it's all soldered on and sitting in a unibody. And none of this is unique. We tend to prefer the completely designed experience. We don't want to buy separate pieces and construct our own chair or table or our cars. Modularity feels like creating pages from different books and turning it into a story. You don't get the same cohesion. Or going to the golden corral and ordering pasta, a steak, sushi and pie. It doesn't make a good meal no matter how good the individual pieces. A properly designed course around a set of ingredients or a theme is always better, especially when curated by professionals. Does that mean we don't want choice or can't handle it? No. I just think that we find modularity, in a very loose sense of the word, in the product offering. All the different phone manufacturers ARE the modularisation and personalisation of the smartphone. Hell Samsung alone has put out 200 phones. Many vendors do, and quite a few of them experiment. e.g. the phablet was a big experiment that saw a market demand. We've seen battery powerhouses. We've seen tiny-bezel phones with a large chin. We've seen phones with an insane amount of megapixels on the camera, phones built for selfies, phones with a curved display, phones that integrate with digital covers etc. So the choice is really there. In the end I think the flagship products are so well designed that the need for tradeoffs will diminish. In some ways we're already there. Phones have a good enough camera for everything except professional work. Phones come with storage we see on laptops. We've cheapish 'unlimited' data plans. We see insane resolution screens. We see all day battery life. In short, when I buy a flagship phone, I don't really think 'damn wish I could switch out the iPhone camera for more storage, could do it if only my phone were modular'. Battery is still a big point of improvement for me, a tradeoff, but that's about it. It feels by the time Ara could pick up steam, the tradeoffs, like battery, are likely so small (ever more efficient chips, mostly) we probably won't have a big enough demand for different phone configs for different times, enough that we're willing to pay extra for the different extra units, and bear the reduced performance and form factor that a modular system offers over a single fully designed experience. At the end of the day phones are becoming able to do everything, and the personalisation of the phone is all in the software (apps, themes, content), the choice of phone (again, lots of experimentation and catering to niche markets by vendors) and things like cases. I don't really see modularity becoming a big part of that. That having been said, I love that I've been using my PC for 7 years, switching components every now and then. It's a pleasure. It'd be awesome to see how far modular phones could go. It might be one of those things that somehow just works so well and sticks, even if it's not the best system on paper, like say tcp/ip. Looking forward to ara going live for consumers this year.

stephenmm 12y ago

I screamed like a little kid when I read this. I was working on UniPro 6 years ago and thought it was a great idea then. Glad to see it finally coming to market!

soyiuz 12y ago

Modular devices make a lot of theoretical sense. Practically, it is almost impossible to achieve cohesion between large corporate players. Just look at the power tools market. Also, I stopped reading after "revolutionary."

serve_yay 12y ago

Were the connectors really what was holding this back? I would be surprised if it were just that. About the modular phones, super cool idea, but very curious about its feasibility.

Animats 12y ago

There are lots of industrial and commercial devices which could be usefully attached to a smartphone or tablet. Medical diagnostic devices, auto diagnostic readers, and electronic test equipment could all usefully be connected. LabView has a smartphone/tablet interface.[1] None of this is consumer oriented. It's going to be really useful for getting things done with electronics and in industrial and medical environments, but home and office, no. The consumer stuff is going the other way. "One tap to get a ride", says Uber PR. [1] http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/ http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/

maxerickson 12y ago
There are $25 Bluetooth-OBDII dongles. They aren't necessarily 100% capable, but they are $25.