Google shelves plan for phone with interchangeable parts
uk.reuters.com
uk.reuters.com
To make something modular you need to wrap each piece in its own case, add bulky connectors, etc. Both weight and volume are at an extreme premium in mobile devices. All that metal/plastic going in to making the pieces modular is stealing volume and weight from the battery.
The only realistic way to make the power envelope is to use an SoC, which means the CPU, GPU, and RAM must all be in the same module. That doesn't leave a lot worth upgrading... maybe just the radio module. Jumping up in screen resolution would mean replacing the SoC to get a better GPU too.
Modularity worked in desktop PCs because they have gobs of space and an AC power connection.
It _would_ add a little size/mass overhead, but it wouldn't have to add a lot. It would just cut in to bottom lines to build and maintain a consistent form factor. Allowing people to replace parts means they'll be buying fewer new units. My last two laptop purchases were definitely due to a hypothetically fixable problem in an unrepairable form factor.
Making the screen completely modular would be one way to achieve this, since you can just replace the screen with a new one if the old one breaks in a drop. But it can be achieved much more easily and cheaply by simply slightly recessing the screen (or by slightly raising everything around the screen) so the glass never has to make direct contact with concrete in the event of a drop.
This is how bumper cases work, and my $3 bumper case has saved my $400 phone enough times that I'd never use a new phone without one. That said, I really wish this kind of resilience was built into the phone itself, so I'd never have to have to cover up the nice design and great feeling materials on my phone with a cheap, bulky, hideous case.
iPhone 4/4S did this just fine, undo two screws and the glass comes right off ready to be replaced for like $10.
iPhone 5> they started fusing the glass to the sensor IIRC so this became far more expensive/cumbersome
I've had good luck in choosing phones with cases just elastic enough to break a bit while protecting the screen (even without any kind of cover). But I never brought into the hard-case movement by Apple.
That's not what sales numbers say. People repeatedly buy the thinner/lighter models (which also seem more "advanced to then") over heavier alternatives.
Focus most of your efforts putting the good stuff into the thin phones and then run the numbers how everyone is buying thin phones!
I think those are quite different: a phone that screws/clips together where you can replace a damaged screen is a very different prospect from one made of pluggable blocks.
Now we have come somewhat full circle with Apple's Macbook which has meagre hardware functionality and relies on USB-C to provide the missing functionality in a modular fashion. However it means a nest of cables so it's probably not what anyone wants when they want a modular laptop.
We didn't have to go down the road to soldering all the bits to a tiny motherboard, but Apple's vision of "small and light at all costs", including performance and battery life, killed all the other paths for the foreseeable future.
I might investigate EOMA68 stuff, though it is likely years before it'll be viable, if ever (especially given their anti-intel sentiment): http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68
Apple is the only vendor that has a 15" laptop with high-res screen and quad-core processor that gets 8+ hours of battery life. The only laptops with greater battery capacity than the Macbook Pros are the Thinkpads with extended batteries that stick out of the machine.
The PC was the outlier that allowed for easy expansion.
Now we have USB instead of Amiga expansion bays, that required a table with big enough width. Instead we scatter cables and hubs.
People forget Apple was sued, and lost, in the 1990s for telling people to buy new iPods instead of selling replacement batteries. They started moving to user serviceable stuff briefly, but then went back to their own ways and people haven't challenged them since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#iPod_bat...
It was the 2000s, 2005 was the settlement date, iPods didn't exist in the 1990s. They didn't lose, strictly speaking, they settled (which is not the same as admitting fault). Settling lets them save face, even if they may not have had a liability, by not dragging their name through the muck with regards to the poor performance of the batteries and iPods.
The battery is swappable, and the whole thing opens with a set of phillips (you know, the '+' shape) screws.
Although you can't choose the GPU when ordering, newer ones tend to have newer models, implying that's also modular (just fixed to a selection of one at a given time).
So, yeah --- you can get a modular laptop, but you have to know where to look.
And how much did it weigh? Laptops have come a long way since even just 10 years ago. My rMBP is almost a pound lighter than my original Macbook, despite having a 15.4" versus 13.3" screen, a quad core versus dual-core processor, and a 96 watt-hour battery versus a 55 watt-hour battery.
And even if I was willing to cart around that extra 0.8 pounds, I wouldn't want to spend that extra weight budget on increased modularity. I'd much rather they, say, push the battery life to 14-15 hours instead.
There's no point adding any extra module, people do not upgrade anything besides RAM, and everything that wears off is included.
PCMCIA was so great. In my entire experience of computing and consumer electronics, I think PCMCIA is still my favorite technology. I miss it a lot.
- screen - battery - processor (cpu/gpu/memory/radio) - everything else (sensors, interconnects, speakers, storage, etc.)
Almost all phone processors are a BGP stack with memory on top of cpu/gpu/radio on a single die.
The big change that happened with the "reset" was that the display, primary battery, and AP (SoC) all became part of the frame. The original notion was that all the parts of the phone were modules, all connecting to the AP (which is also a module) via the frame's UniPro network-- the frame itself has little intelligence. (The way this works is actually pretty neat; I hope some of the network stack sees the light of day in some form or another.)
I can understand why this could be a useful internal experiment. But, clearly, some people at Google expected this to be a viable product. Baffling.
Where they really working on it?
What I'm saying is that replacing the VGA card isn't the only sensible form of modularity. Replacing the case/screen with a watertight one when you move house to somewhere really rainy makes sense, etc.
It's not ideal because they integrated it with the battery bay, so you have shut the device off to make a swap you're replacing the end of the removable battery tray, which is also a pretty boss feature given the complete sealed flagships everyone else produces now).
But, it mates both a solid, SoC platform with some modular flexibility, vice having to bluetooth tether accessory cases to your phone.
http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-10-lg-g5-breach-usb-type...
I agree USB-C is standard and will be THE new standard (over Micro-USB). But very few manufacturers are getting USB-C right.
I'm not even especially concerned by it, though I'd (obviously) prefer if everyone just used the standard charge protocols rather than thirty different "nod-and-a-wink" handshakes.
I suppose absent external pressure there's not much reason for the SoC vendors to opt for the standard over their own proprietary thing, though, is there.
Yes the phone would be bigger, but I believe the main reason this has gone nowhere is that people have got used to seeing phones as replaceable units at the phone level, not at the component level, and there's more money in selling a shiny new Galaxy Over9000 than there is in selling a swap-out for a busted screen.
This is probably mostly right, except that the size and weight of current mobile phones is probably largely determined by display, battery and case design/protection. I'd like to see some real numbers here. My guess is that 5-10g of plastic and connectors wouldn't make much of a difference and could easily be compensated with a slightly smaller battery and screen if size/weight become an issue.
> Modularity worked in desktop PCs because they have gobs of space and an AC power connection.
Many things have changed since the 80s, modularity is now unattractive for most users.
It's not that modularity has become unattractive, it's that smaller form factors have become more attractive.
A larger form factor is a potential side effect of modularity.
I don't think modularity was ever very attractive in most consumer electronics for the "average joe" who just wants something that does the job they bought it for.
Now with USB and Thunderbolt it seems we are back to the 8 and 16 bit days of selling computers as appliances, specially due to the thin margins that are currently being used.
Outside gamers, even customizable desktops seem to be a dying breed.
I was fine with the old ways.
The move from Spectrums to the PC was mostly driven by my parents. I would have gotten an Amiga 500 if given the choice.
Like many others commenting on this news, every I got to upgrade my PC during the 90's and early 2000, I had to buy a new one due to the cascade of required updates.
Since 2003 I only use laptops and am fine with the limited upgrade options.
Having each and every widget doing its own network and software stack is just a mess. Nevermind having to power all these gadgets.
There's very little reason to have more than one base in a room, that could handle all the non-switch/non-outlet duties. (cameras, air quality sensors, motion sensors, mics and speakers for echo-type interaction, tv input, etc.)
If all those features were just modules that stacked on top of a base (and could be swapped independently), you'd really have something.
Home automation is, by the nature of it, a series of distinct functions spread throughout the home (e.g. front door lock, garage control, temperature control, lights in each room, sprinkler system, washer/dryer alerts, etc); so you're going to need each of these geographically separate things communicating into a central control "hub."
You cannot physically move these things into a module on the central control hub. Most of them have to be in the location they're already at (e.g. physically in the front door).
How does making the control hub a modular unit help with the complexity of home automation? If anything it further adds to the complexity. A lot of the solutions now just use WiFi networking and a standard protocol.
I'm just not understanding your concept at all.
If your laundry room doesn't really need a camera, it just needs a thermometer, you just slot in the thermometer plug into that room base, etc.
(e.g. people are going to buy an Echo or a Dropcam long before they refit their house for smart switches/outlets/bulbs/appliances.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8527774
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7597090
It's too bad we can't keep a score of people's accuracy. We might be able to learn something.
A modular cellphone would be bulky, likely power hungry, and despite its modularity, it would not be easy to upgrade whatsoever.
Ara was DOA.
You missed one other possibility and that's structural components. If any of the parts of the device can be part of the hardened envelope then you lose less space.
For instance, a thinner PCB bonded to or traced onto the inside of the case. Or look at the research in automotive circles for batteries that can support a physical load.
And also one of my peeves about Apple phones is that the chassis is so strong that you don't need a cover, but only a few people I know don't use a case, so phone plus case is heavier.
I'd like to see someone build a phone that HAS to have a case, and comes with one, which you can replace. You could do the same with the modular design and then you wouldn't have to make individual pieces bomb proof.
It's not that I don't think it's inevitable that the project was cancelled now. I'm just thinking in ten years when some of this is sorted out and we have no reason to keep making phones smaller, this plan might come back again. It's just another project that came out before its time.
If Apple would stop making their phones so damn sleek and slippery I would skip the case too. The primary purpose of my case is to make it harder to drop in the first place.
In fact, I went so far as to contact several small electronics designers and fabricators and drew up some initial plans. rsync.net and (pre-release) 0x.co kept me busy, so I didn't get much further than that.
But in answer to your point:
"To make something modular you need to wrap each piece in its own case, add bulky connectors, etc. Both weight and volume are at an extreme premium in mobile devices."
No, not really ... the design direction I was going in was a to have one or two or three plastic cases, depending on how large (how many modules) you wanted your phone to be and then the modules themselves were bare daughterboards that had connectors such that you could assemble them like a grid.
So in that fashion, each module would not need its own packaging and case - you simply started with a plastic package (case) that was large enough for whatever "grid" you wanted to assemble.
And, of course, you could add a second (or third, or fourth) battery module.
Yes, they could make it stronger in the modular approach. But this means even more unnecessary plastic and metal casing.
Camera upgrades would sell like hot cakes.
Can anyone at Google (or ex-employees) tell me if this is true?
If they intentionally failed, I would agree, but I have seen no proof of that. Many ventures fail, regardless of resources and best intentions.
Hah. Without evidence, lots of them.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/15/5615880/building-blocks-ho...
The biggest part of making something the next big thing is actually producing a product.
Of course there is, keep it secret until they're close to release.
There are enough leaked press stories on secret projects they are working on but not announcing until they have gone the distance.
It's alomost certain that other companies, like Apple and Microsoft are working of similar things but they just don't make public announcements about their internal hackathon proof-of-concepts
Most things are less obvious I imagine.
Isn't this the modus operandi of startups though? Most of them fail too, but they hardly ever get their feet held to the fire like Google projects.
It's as sad as Facebook's rampant feature theft from Snapchat. Sure, not illegal, not surprising, but also not impressive.
I just want to know how pervasive that is across the company.
Like any other business.
But in the instance of this phone, a more straightforward strategy seems clear: to break down the monolithic phone market and suppress the unique market position of big competitors like Samsung. As in this quote from a wowed reporter from The Verge --
Just as importantly, though, Project Ara could have a ripple effect on the entire mobile industry. One of the goals is to "democratize the hardware ecosystem, break it wide open, basically disintermediate the OEMs," Eremenko [then the project lead] says, "so that component developers can now have privy [sic] with the consumer."
Fun to read the puff piece in retrospect: http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/15/5615880/building-blocks-ho...
Otherwise, the guy building the integrated system would offer a smaller, sturdier phone at lower cost that suits 90+% of the market, leaving scraps for you, forcing your prices up, decreasing your market even further, forcing your prices up, etc.
There's a reason that, except for a few early suitcase-sized ones, we never saw laptops with ISA/PCI/PCMCIA slots succeed in the market, and laptops had the advantage to start out as desktops, which had slots.
Huh? PCMCIA/CardBus/ExpressCard was a standard feature in more or less all laptop until just a few years ago.
Dell Expiron 5520 (2012) http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/dell/dell_inspiron_15r_...
Sony VAIO A-series (2012) http://www.digitaltrends.com/laptop-reviews/sony-vaio-e-seri...
ASUS G73JH (2010) http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/asus-k42j-revie...
HP Pavilion dm3t (2010) http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/hp-pavilion-dm3t-20...
Just some random models, I literally just put the name of a brand + a date in the past and opened a review. No ExpressCard in any of them.
Maybe you went out looking for laptops with such slots? It was hardly "every laptop" and even less "at every price range" that had them.
So whether or not it keeps people from leaving, if it is effective at getting people to apply to Google first, it meets its goal right?
From my experience working there some of the "moonshot" type projects were rather hit or miss in terms of retention. Some, like the self driving car one, attracted a lot of great talent, some of the more interesting power related ones were only interesting to people who cared about power efficiency. But the feeling that anything is possible is intoxicating until you realize what you have to give up to make something possible. Then its sort of hit or miss.
"It's a magical place"
In this respect I'd probably even prefer Apple where the food is not free (and the price has generally been increasing) but the quality has been much better maintained than at Google.
Still, I'm not comparing Google against Apple (which is one of the top revenue/employee companies), but against smaller companies, startups and all the other companies in the world that can't compete that easily with the quality of life that these companies provide.
Source: worked at Google for 2 years
Now our corporate overlord announces a way to let you replace a few basic components like your camera and battery and when they later cancel it the dominant reaction is "no big surprise there." Replace the magic candy bar in your pocket every 2 years, don't look inside, don't think about how it works, just embrace your new role in the modern tech industry as part of the top 1%'s recurring revenue strategy.
The big money won, consumers lost, hackers lost. Sure it's business and you can never expect corporations to be altruistic, they have a profit motive. But that's never meant that you should give an anti-consumer attitude a free pass either. Every year that goes by now drives me deeper into the open source camp and Stallman's welcoming embrace.
This is what Apple provides. By removing connectors between replaceable parts they are able to reduce the size and increase battery size. So on so forth.
Hackers lose the ability to swap out parts and customize it to their liking but your average citizen has no clue how to replace a DIMM stick and doesn't want to care. They don't care about managing files on their phone or any of that. They want the phone to be safe from malware, they want the device to work and to be easy to use.
They have chosen to specialize in something else. To understand fashion, chemistry, politics, something. Their brain power is spent on something other than how computers work. And that is ok. Our job as technologists is to empower them in that. To allow them to achieve more in their love without getting in their way by managing device drivers.
Heck, even my mother is able to change the battery of her Samsung phone when she's out all day taking pictures, and she's as far as it gets from an engineer.
Bringing the argument of "consumers want something that works" every time some are looking for a repairability/upgradeability path only leads to this false dichotomy of splitting the world between nerds and fools.
Sure, but it'll still be far cheaper to pay someone to replace the DIMM stick than to buy a new phone/computer/whatever. Plus there's the environmental aspect, too.
Economy of scale means that it's cheaper to include every kind of hardware anybody may want than to customize. Hackers lose the ability to swap parts, but didn't lose any single kind of (hardware) functionality that is available on the market. (Still lose anything that we invent by ourselves.)
I don't call that a loss, at least not on mobile devices. We still have desktops and development boards for hacking.
Every custom PC maker friend keeps telling me that but realistically - have anybody ever used the "upgraded" pc for 10+ years? By the time the cpu needs an upgrade - there is a new motherboard needed and your case and power supply also becomes obsolete, never mind graphics card, so you end up getting a whole new pc instead.
I purchased my current PC case/graphics card, cpu and motherboard 5 years ago, have replaced the CPU cooler, and the SSD drives and added an audio card, upgraded the RAM and added an extra HDD.
I think part of the problem is that despite smartphones being similar to desktops, they're not the same at all and have complementary but ultimately different purposes. One is suited to being upgradeable, the other isn't.
They are gaming laptops too, a 5 year old one would be just fine with an upgrade to the video card. Lesson learned though, when the current one get's replaced it will probably be with something more modular.
I've never found this to be the case, maybe it's because I try not to skimp on power supplies during my initial build. The last time I upgraded my CPU/mobo, I didn't change my case, power supply, video card, RAM, SSD, disk drives, sound card, SATA cables, or network card. Plenty of my "old" computer still works just fine.
But with desktop PC technology largely plateauing technology wise, I think this scenario is becoming more and more realistic. As long as the desktop market hangs on long enough for parts to be available, that is.
The current crop of device manufacturers, on the other handed, punted on this goal. Is it really because this generation's engineers aren't good enough to solve an engineering problem? Is it coincidental that failure to solve this engineering problem results in higher profits?
I don't think that's the case -- I think the business planners in the current generation of manufacturers saw interchangeable components as a feature which would results in consumers saving money and buying fewer new phones, gave us the middle finger and never bothered to do it.
> failure to solve this engineering problem results in higher profits?
Ultimately all engineering in a capitalist business is value engineering. Cost is not something that can be removed from the metric in people's heads which they use to choose solutions.
There are only two ways I can see out of this: a move towards lease-like arrangements for phones, where the manufacturer has an incentive for something other than obsolecence; or the EU pushing WEEE harder.
How we can encourage more of that is a tricky question. I certainly don't want a world where profit-motivated private companies can't build hardware and software. But I don't like the direction this current crop of businesses is taking us. I do think essential infrastructure doesn't belong in the hands of a single party -- we should have learned that lesson and internalized the risks of single vendor lock-in long ago.
Also, I'm not sure we can make the "simply not economical" statement this early whitout having gotten a more detailed reasoning of the descision. After all, already many other comments in this thread point out ways in which modules could be useful that don't clash with architecture requirements. (e.g. exchangeable case). Also, as far as I know, Project ARA had a non-google "open source" predecessor. The people initiating that obviously found the idea realistic enough to explore.
Finally, if it were just technical constraits, we should see a golden era of modularisation in smart cars, as both available space and power are comparable to PCs. Yet, we see the same kinds of lockdown - or even more extreme forms - over there.
If you change everything but the case and PSU, is it still the same system? Especially in the "golden desktop era" the pace of development was so quick that in 10 years multiple new CPU/RAm/storage standards were introduced, forcing you to upgrade pretty much everything to keep the system modern.
The same applies for mobile: the hardware is so cheap and gets "old" so fast that it's not commercially viable to offer modular upgrades. E.g. if you upgrade display, you likely need to upgrade the SOC as well.
PS. FairPhone is nice effort but not a modular system, they just offer easy repairability and spare parts.
[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+2+Teardown/52523
"LOOK AT THAT AVERAGE USER! Yes that one! The average Joe! THIS IS what you'll use and nothing more. You don't need anything else!" -- This is the argument you hear in these kind of topics. If it's not usable for an "average user" it doesn't need to exist. No tolerance for choice on modern "free" market of electronics.
It's pretty much the endgame of the hoteliering effect (Is that the right translation?) - the market converges to the point where all the players offer pretty much copy-paste services and the choice for consumer is lost, because the differences between competitors are too small. At that point the market simply ceases to function properly.
The only thing we've been able to customize to the level of extent you're talking about is desktop PCs and they have't gone away.
The chances of you being able to replace your phone's battery or upgrade your laptop's RAM yourself has gone down but there is still a ton of demand for build your own PCs met with a supply of ever-improving products.
A much better tactic would've been 1-2 expansion ports for specialized hardware modules -- everything from credit card readers (a la Square), medical sensors, portable oscilloscope, etc. A standardized peripheral interface for hardware expansion slots across all phone variants could've really enabled a whole bunch of new applications (and industries). I'm sad to see it abandoned entirely.
(I wonder if there weren't some strong personalities that kept the "100% modular or bust" mentality?)
An Ara-esque expansion slot could've created a real standard.
A modest cable leading to the peripheral in question is likely an acceptable form factor, and far more robust than trying to make one standard for a thing to bolt on to.
but it seems LG has reliability with it http://www.alphr.com/lg/1002753/lg-g5-review-2016s-cleverest...
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/why-isnt-your-old-pho...
I wonder how they'll handle software and retaining data through a cross-platform upgrade - a build for Android for the msm8xxx series won't run on a Mediatek SoC.
At worst, ask people to reflash to another Android ROM when switching. User software and data is on another partition anyway, and you can force Android to recompile all user applications by clearing your cache partition.
Now, imagine a phone that has all these components and imagine the overhead of supporting that. Now you might say it is for tech people..that market is not big enough to warrant the R&D and support. Right call Google.
I'm a computer guy and it's a struggle to find things.
Never mind that Apple for the longest time ran a bunch of ads that was basically instruction videos on how to reach things like maps.
They still won't tell you what drives an app is using data on. I need to free up space somewhere but can't tell where.
And don't get me started on the shitty Google apps that can't be removed or moved to SD.
These days what comes up as the SD is more correctly a folder on the emmc (internal storage).
Its just that for legacy reasons it is treated as the primary removable storage by Android.
There is a Android/data/"app vendor uri"/ tree within that simulated SD that is used as a dumping ground for various files.
I never once thought this would see the light of day.
As a mainstream device for my mom, yes I agree.
Absolutely. I'm looking for an IP68-certified phone with a 3" 400 PPI polycarbonate screen and without a camera.
Such a thing doesn't exist, but Ara gave me a vague hope that one day I might be able to obtain a phone that fits my needs instead of those of a manufacturer.
Buy your devices at the same place you buy your software support. It's now just one contract, and the connection between the software and hardware means you have a single point of failure (if the phone borks, call Google) instead of 2.
That it didn't happen could point to Google's enterprise game not being strong enough or the hardware not working out. Or maybe enterprise doesn't net them enough money compared to focusing on consumers.
Yes. The trend towards huge phones doesn't work for me, I need (and want) to be able to operate them one handed. I don't care what camera it comes with, they got good enough for me 5+ years ago, but someone that takes a lot more pictures would disagree.
I was honestly holding off on a cell phone upgrade hoping to get my hands on the developer version of this early 2017.
A lot of people here talk about performance and size. We seem obsessed with them in cell phones but at what point does performance and size become good enough and we can focus on things like sustainability and repairability.
My biggest surprise is that it was still chugging along until now.
I got a $150 aluminum phone with a huge battery, nice enough camera, fingerprint scanner, 3GBs of RAM, expandable storage, etc. etc. ... I don't feel like I need expansion options. What can the higher-specs really offer now a days?
Samsung has the right idea, maybe we'll need better phones for VR. Or maybe built in picoprojectors will be a game changer. But for that you'll need a whole new phone - not just a module snaps on.
1: http://www.kimovil.com/en/where-to-buy-xiaomi-redmi-3s-3gb-3...
Now if you want 2 weeks of battery life on a pocket supercomputer, well, good luck with that.
I have one of their phones. It lives up to the ruggedness advertising.
Also, more mass in the phone means more force on impact.
Or, basically, I just don't have to think or worry about water or moisture at all. Never expected to appreciate that feature so much.
But even if I hadn't, it was super cheap. Look up the Sony xperia M4 Aqua, it's only $150 unlocked on amazon.
Their new phone line will be called Pixels.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/01/exclusive-googles-ne...
It seems very unlikely, but there's a part of me still wondering.
With Android N, they took the extra step to kill native apps that dare to link to Android native libraries, if not part of the stable list, like libpng for example.
Regarding Fushia the overhead seems to actually be anything under GPL.
What the heck is the deal with big companies naming things in horribly ambiguous, confusing ways? Is there an actual reason for doing that, i.e. it's proven that this somehow leads to better sales or something?
So you're meant to buy a phone shell and separate components to plug into this, where you can upgrade different components over time? Ignoring technical issues, wouldn't the shell get out of date quickly as well as the components (with some components being incompatible with other shells and components)?
It doesn't sound cost effective considering how cheap phones are getting and how often we are seeing physical hardware changes still (e.g. fingerprint readers, screen size, thinnest).
Modularity worked out pretty well for the PC. When you make things open, there's no way to imagine ahead of times the things people will come up with.
More to the point, how well is it working out for /modern/ laptops. Look at the drive in that market.
You are relying on the assumption that the "modularity" is independent of the form factor; that if it worked in the PC, it can work in a mobile phone.
Maybe the success of mobile phones is because of their lack of modularity, not in spite of it.
It's possible. But all I'm saying is that, in terms of it being "a solution looking for a problem", there is a historical precedent showing that openness/modularity can have powerful benefits. It would be hard to say for sure if that can/would/will apply in the mobile space as well. But it's not something, IMO, one should write off out-of-hand.
I agree with this but the extreme space constraints of a mobile make this comparison less accurate. A PC is often not space, weight or battery life constrained and has the space and power for big dual graphics cards, huge heatsinks, water cooling, big fans, multiple hard drives etc.
I just can't see how it's feasible to create a modular mobile that will compete with current flagship phones which are likely pushing the space constraints and specs to the limits (is this accurate?). This sounds unlike how you can build a PC to compete with prebuilt options.
A better comparison is comparing modular phones to modular laptops. Laptops are weight, battery and space constrained as well and I haven't seen upgradable laptops gaining traction. Is that because of similar technical issues?
This interchangeable components idea is much like Assembled computers back in early 2000s. Most people went for assembled computers because it was easy to upgrade single components/pieces. They should have realized that people don't do that with computers these days either. Only may be few enthusiasts and geeks, but definitely not by a common man.
One more project dies at Google...
There's a market for various instruments one could attach to a phone, but it's not a mass market. You can get USB devices which give you a spectrum analyzer or an OBD-II connector, and there are apps to drive them. They're not something you get at phone stores.
Those 2-3 tools would be also available to buy, so owners could change the modules themselves. But since it would be quite advanced - same as with changing PC parts - it would void the guarantee for whole phone.
> the company may work with partners to bring Project Ara’s technology to market
...vague, but maybe.
From what I see in headlines the camera and battery are the two areas with the most innovation. Apple has a major ad campaign featuring photos shot on iPhones. Almost every new phone release mentions improved battery life. (Admittedly, these energy improvements may come more from decreased consumption than improved storage.)
I see most marketing discussing the following features:
1. Camera 2. Battery life 3. Screen size/resolution
This makes sense given that there aren't many other areas to radically innovate. Someone's already tried adding decent speakers, a kickstand, and various exclusive apps.
A better idea is to attack the areas where apple and samsung are retreating. Replaceable batteries, memory cards, peripheral connections etc...
Semi-seriously, but I'd like to know where exactly they are moving on now.
It's a cool concept, but I don't think current technology would allow this to work in a reasonable way.
Google, your Android updating system is fucked up. Fix it first, and then we can talk about exending the life of hardware.
Google just needs to make it part of the contract of using Android or access to the Play Store.
No updates, no access.
(I mean sanely if it was like installing Windows or Linux and not specific build for single phone model made from hacks and insane backmerges)
Ok so you can keep your handle and grip, and the little viewfinder. The sum of Those useless pieces doesn't mean you've "upgraded" your camera
I wonder what this move has to do with what phone manufacturers are doing in general: hiding away components like the battery that were once open to the consumer, making it difficult to do anything but buy a new phone if the battery alone dies out. One can't get more anti-modular than that, and the Nexus 5X has the same deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFbSpvSE-w&feature=youtu.be...
>The battery isn't immediately user accessible but isn't too challenging, or too adhered, to replace.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+5X+Teardown/51318#s112...
Then context optimization: At one time I may need additional battery life, and another time I may need a second sim card.
Playing around myself: It could also become a raspberry pie with more add-ons and for the more software oriented tinkerers, and I am one of them. Playing around with the pie was always nice, but I didn't fully use it because the more creative stuff always required really working with the hardware, what I don't like at all.
Also let's not forget the Pokemon effect: If there is something that can be collected, ppl will have fun just in the collecting. And not everybody may agree but funding tech experiments by people paying for fun is a valid business model for me.
I'm expecting a similar announcement about project Makani.
Google just deprecated gcc and will only offer clang on future NDK versions.
Native apps are so constrained in Android that they could replace Linux with something else and only OEMs writing drivers would notice.
Fuchsia takes this further by not having any GPL component at all.
Is this proof that I am more intelligent than everyone who believed in this idea? I think so?
No.
and by stupid, I meant economically infeasible, no product market fit
words we associate with waste of time, in this sector