Phonebloks modular smartphone

[chicken]

Psst, it's still alive:
http://techland.time.com/2014/02/26/google-project-ara-modular-smartphone/

Looking at the pictures, I'm more worried about battery life than interconnect speeds.

[Stonent]

I had always hoped that they would just take the GSM section and modularlize it like the integrated 3g/4g cards in laptops. Then you could just move it from your once device to another. But since much of the hardware is now part of the processor, it isn't as practical.

[Rasz]

I seriously cant tell where the battery is on that pic
blue stuff at the top?


Yeah, Qualcomm, Mediatek, even Nvidia and recently Intel, they all pushed radio into the same SoC to cut costs. As a result every SoC on the market is susceptible to attack from the radio channel (already demonstrated as practical at CCC)

[Legit-Design]

I seriously cant tell where the battery is on that pic
blue stuff at the top?

The grey pouch down from middle, with black text on it, and kapton tape on the top part.
That looks like a really small battery for a phone that size. Capacity per volume in modern batteries isn't that advanced that people would want smaller battery.

Check the video, he clearly shows where the battery is. (second vid on that page, not the youtube video.)
http://techland.time.com/2014/02/26/google-project-ara-modular-smartphone/

[chicken]

I seriously cant tell where the battery is on that pic

Lower right, the half-inserted module with the grey-silver blob.

[nuhamind2]

This guy (http://datastickies.com/) has found a way to transfer data by sticking it on a glass surface, guess this will make phoneblok realizeable 

[tom66]

"How? It's made possible with graphene."
 

[Rasz]

I seriously cant tell where the battery is on that pic

Lower right, the half-inserted module with the grey-silver blob.

DOH! its standard liion pouch, I was looking for a neat battery module somewhere around the main chassis on the picture :/
Yeah, it looks 1/2 the size of "normal" phone batteries

[Sigmoid]

Desktop PCs are as modular as it gets. When was the last time you upgraded your CPU without replacing the Mobo? It's not AS awesome as they make it look. CPUs and chipsets tend to grow together, and tend to perform best with their "own" counterpart. CPU sockets are upgraded every few versions.
Even when replacing something as modular as your GPU card, you often opt for a complete systems upgrade in order to get the maximum out of the new card - say your mobo doesn't support PCIe 3.0 16x yet.
Memory upgrades are hindered by memory bus version upgrades.

Modularity is overrated, in a way. Yes, iPhones would do good to have a replaceable SD card "hard drive", and generally the whole mobile world would do well to be less closed.
But with a device as portable as a phone, I think ruggedness is paramount. A modular design would introduce points of failure, and make the system more fault-prone.

And of course modularity is doable, but this block concept is a bunch of crazy - the sort 12 year olds tend to come up with. The whole project seems like an April fools' joke.

+besides, the modularity in PCs makes sense only because it's an open platform. Because there are literally thousands of component vendors. I don't see how that would ever happen here, with a Google Ara or Motorola PhoneBloks if it ever happens (tho bets are on won't).

[Stonent]

Considering google is trying to sell motorola to lenovo they may just scrap everything and go their own way.

[electr_peter]

As many posters mentioned before, there many reasons why modular phone is not the best seller in phone store. I think there are 4 main problems with modular approach:

1) technical implementation is tricky. Modern phones are slim and fast because most parts are very integrated - make them modular and you lose those benefits.

2) Phone blocks has to become a manufacturing standard. Who is going to set the standard and why manufacturers should take the risk? Apple or any other manufacturer would not try to produce platform on their own cost for other manufacturers to use and compete with them. Would Apple be so successful if they produced exactly the same phones as others? Manufacturers are generally not in favour for such detailed standards, set not by government institution.

3) actual price of phone would increase, based on 1 or 2.

4) user interface/experience would be poor, because consumer would have to make an engineering decision each time their try to assemble the phone. Do I need bigger battery with poor performance or do I need better performance? I need both!!! That is far too demanding for a typical consumer, especially when you can buy an assembled phone with predefined features in low/mid/high cost range.

Also, why the question is raised backwards? It is assumed that users change their phones so frequently to get the newest "features" that it is necessary to construct modular design. Do you really need the newest phone (because it is 0.5% faster), or is it conspicuous consumption? On the other hand, manufacturer is interested in best money and features ratio (long term reliability, features upgrades, etc.). Current phone design is not suited for longevity/repair-ability/robustness. I don't see how phoneblocks could change current mind set of consumers and manufacturers.

I can think of one somewhat similar example. European Union (government institution, not business unit in any way) has standardised cellphone chargers to use micro USB port. This was good move, in my opinion. But there are manufacturers (like Apple) with custom connector for each generation.

One of declared goal for phoneblocks is to reduce waste. In current situation I hardly see how this could lead to less waste.
If phoneblocks could lead a standardisation of cellphone battery sizes, I am all for it. Otherwise, welcome back to the reality.

[chicken]

Talking about which, there's an update about Google's project Ara:
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/04/google-reveals-more-design-details-about-its-modular-ara-phone/
http://news.phonebloks.com/post/81904774571/video-project-ara-update-in-this-video (between marketing wanking, there's also some naked electronics)
http://www.projectara.com/mdk/

[Rasz]

Its ALIVE!

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/google-moonshot-group-demos-modular-phone-that-almost-actually-works/


and _almost_ booted the OS

[edavid]

OK, who's going to design the oscilloscope module?