cool new smartphone concept. - help requested

[spikerS]

saw this come up on my feed this morning.

http://blogs.canoe.ca/canoetech/mobi...o-like-blocks/



pretty awesome concept!

[speedog]

Wouldn't even give it a second look - every cell phone I've owned has been wildly different from the one it replaced and I just can't seem locking myself into a certain form factor.

[Xtrema]

Interesting concept. Commercially it won't happen. Too many point of failure and not enough profit to be made for the manufacturers.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Xtrema
Interesting concept. Commercially it won't happen. Too many point of failure and not enough profit to be made for the manufacturers.

I disagree.

while profit points on each device may be smaller, the profit % would be similar. And instead of having to manufacture the whole phone, a company could focus on what parts they want to.

This has the potential to really spur development and innovation if it takes off.

as for points of failure, that is a good thing commercially. Keeps the user coming back for more "blocks"

[supe]

I was kind of hoping the Moto X was going to have some of these features when they marketed it as customizable. Anyway, its a neat concept I can see this catching on especially with the people that always want the latest and greatest.

[speedog]

Originally posted by supe
I was kind of hoping the Moto X was going to have some of these features when they marketed it as customizable. Anyway, its a neat concept I can see this catching on especially with the people that always want the latest and greatest.

Might fly with the Apple crowd as their devices have pretty much had the same look/feel over the years - a removable battery would win some of them over.

[Modelexis]

This is a terrible idea.

Problem: people upgrade cell phones all the time because they get smaller and faster and lighter and more efficiently designed

Solution: Create a way to more easily upgrade phone components and throw away old slow components weekly instead of waiting until the end of your phone contract to upgrade.
Oh, and the phone is a giant brick that will remain the same size for the foreseeable future.

It's only takes 5 seconds thought to destroy this concept.

Fuckin hipster idiots.

[Modelexis]

Originally posted by speedog

Might fly with the Apple crowd as their devices have pretty much had the same look/feel over the years - a removable battery would win some of them over.

Iphone has a removable battery, you gotta open the unit with a couple screws to do so but it is removable.

These hipster fags can't work a screw driver so they have to try and invent a pos brick phone lego set for idiots.

[Modelexis]

One good thing will be theft though, someone can steal your phone and harvest the components easily and quickly.

[spike98]

This is a terrible idea and here's why:

1. Development would be a nightmare. Your phone is working great then a new camera module comes out. Awesome. Lets upgrade. Then you realize the software needs to support it. And it needs new drivers. Android is open source and the software variations are already wildly out of control to support different phones the some of the SAME components. This would screw everything up wildly.

2. SOC's. Most of the phones now adays are putting everything on to one chip. They do this to reduce size and increase efficiency. This is a GIANT step backwards to this. It will make these things massive and power hungry.

3. Cost. While replacing an old broken component would be cheaper than a whole phone the cost of R&D would be enormous. You would have to program for every single variation of the phone imaginable. Lets say that there is a low cost, midrange and high end option of every component. With the battery, RAM, ROM, Camera, CPU, GPU, Screen, BT Radio, WIFI Radio, and Cellular radio you are looking at 59049 different combinations. Thats an enormous amount to produce, program for, and support. And thats for ONE company. Imagine other manufactures developing modules claiming to have the best in tech.

4. Backwards innovation. While this idea seams new and a step forward, in reality its a giant leap back. We are reinventing the wheel here. Trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. The top manufacturers spent billions on research and development to get where we are today. We have shrunk down components and technology that is orders of magnitude more powerful than devices that you to launch man into space. Now we do it all over again because we toss some devices away? The future is more tech, lest cost. Not less tech, more cost. Shit, after what the world has spent to get it to today we still have a hard time making a phone last a day.

5. Financial Backing. There is not one single company (even if apple and google joined to form goople) that would be able to handle the initial cost of developing, implementing a product like this let alone the support to make it successful and competitive in our current market. That doesn't even include moving forward to remain competitive.

I could go on (and will if anyone wants me to) about this is not going to ever come off the ground but its lunch time and im hungry. This is really a bad idea.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by spikers
as for points of failure, that is a good thing commercially. Keeps the user coming back for more "blocks"

Here's the other problem. By making the battery not user changeable, the phone got smaller.

The fact is, any component made user serviceable without reliability issue means it will get bigger and larger. Not necessary a good thing for a phone.

If failure rate is high, people will stay away and platform will fail.

And remember how shitty it was during early PC days? And who will pay for it you bought a brand A camera that shorted out brand B motherboard?

[spikerS]

hey, it still works with desktop PCs and to a lesser extent laptops.

a standard is created, and the manufacturers design and develop to that standard.

This isn't rocket science...

Nice ninja edit X, i should have quoted you.

[Modelexis]

The degree to which is works to a lesser extend on a laptops, take that lesser extent and multiply it and you have cell phones.

There is a reason that the smaller you go the less modular the device can be.



No surprise spikers is still living in dream land.

[A790]

Originally posted by Modelexis
The degree to which is works to a lesser extend on a laptops, take that lesser extent and multiply it and you have cell phones.

There is a reason that the smaller you go the less modular the device can be.



No surprise spikers is still living in dream land.

Surprise surprise, Modelexis being a douche again. SHOCKING.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by A790

Surprise surprise, Modelexis being a douche again. SHOCKING.

You had to quote him didn't you?

There is a reason he is on my ignore list!

His opinions are not worth the time it takes to read them.

[UndrgroundRider]

This was posted on reddit. The general consensus is that from an engineering perspective, it would be impossible. To actually make this thing several concessions would have to be made to the design, ultimately making it look more like a normal phone.

[n1zm0]

Motorola has invested interest in this concept now looks like, a main endoskeleton and then the rest of the hardware snaps on I guess:


» Click image for larger version


» Click image for larger version

Meet Ara.

Led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.

Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs, and how long you’ll keep it.

The design for Project Ara consists of what we call an endoskeleton (endo) and modules. The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of!

We’ve been working on Project Ara for over a year. Recently, we met Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Turns out we share a common vision: to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customizable, and made for the entire world. We’ve done deep technical work. Dave created a community. The power of open requires both. So we will be working on Project Ara in the open, engaging with the Phonebloks community throughout our development process, as well as asking questions to our Project Ara research scouts (volunteers interested in helping us learn about how people make choices). In a few months, we will also send an invitation to developers to start creating modules for the Ara platform (to spice it up a bit, there might be prizes!). We anticipate an alpha release of the Module Developer’s Kit (MDK) sometime this winter.

So stay tuned. There will be a lot more coming from us in the next few months.

http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/...hello-ara.html

[Disoblige]

Love the idea. Although, it would suck if you get your phone stolen. Would be extremely hard to track stolen goods on Kijiji, etc.

[btimbit]

I always wished phones would be like computers, where you could just buy one straight off the shelf and replace it every few months/years; OR replace certain parts as they become outdated rather than buying a whole new one.

I always figured that this would be the way Android would eventually get to

[blairtruck]

im not a fan of the big block thing
the motorola one looks nicer