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Comment by ippisl | Hacker News Reader

<rumor> I have a guess about the motoX phone: It will have a modular hardware component. Probably something similar to the jolla phone , which is build from two different parts stuck togheter by magnets. One part if your phone , and the other one is a replaceable hardware card.

This also fits the motoX ad saying "design your own phone".

The replaceable part could be designed by anyone, and it opens a lot of places for innovation: think of a microscope, or a fingerprint scanner, or nose on a chip, or high quality audio interfaces ,or unique sensors or any number of niche hardware.

Anyway , i really hope that's the case. If will be really fun to play and design with such phones.

</rumor>

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All the current rumors on the phone point to boring superficial changes like color and customized wallpapers (for real). They're not spending $500mil advertising a phone for hardware geeks.

But if they designed it with 5/10 optional popular hardware modules , and marketing about future modules that will come from community, this could really appeal to early adopters , and people with specific niches that need to be filled.

And technically , if this is the right way to build more innovative phones, it has a good chance to win in the general population.

A hacker's phone! This sounds like a great idea, but it's probably too innovative to be designed by Moto and too risky to be sent into production by Google.

A toned down version though, which like the Jolla adjusts the background and user experience based on the color/style of the case - that I could definitely see.

BTW, where did you learn that the Jollo phone is held together by magnets?

Not sure where i learned about magnets. Just did some web surfing around this.

Too risky for google? why ?

They seem like a company who takes risks.see: automated cars, internet balloons, google wave, competing with amazon on fast product shipping.

Too risky for a half-billion dollar ad campaign for "flagship" hardware. Google, while not exactly risk-averse, can be a stingy company in some respects. Everything else you mentioned came out either labeled "beta" or "an experiment" with comparably smaller marketing budgets (if any).

Yes, exactly. They will have to sell millions of these. There is no way they can afford to do anything risky. It has to be faster, lighter, thinner and more desirable.

That idea reminds me a lot of the Springboard modules on the old Handspring PDAs. (I had a Handspring Prism and an AT&T CDPD wireless data module -- it was like having a clunky smartphone back in 2001.) It would be interesting from a hacker perspective, but it would certainly be counter to the recent trends of making phones more monolithic (i.e. can't even replace the battery).

Could you surf the web with it in 2001 ? if so very cool.

Yes, indeed. The CDPD network was sluggish and spotty, but that was my first taste of being able to look up important information (maps, etc.) on the web while on the go.

I don't think a manufacturer is going to embrace double-walling when thinness is desired by consumers.

A lot depends on how thicker this would be and what the users will get in return.

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