Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

A musing about the aesthetic of modular:

My first 21st century "gadget" (for some obviously arbitrary definition of the term) was an ipod nano. I'm not very sensitive to the niceness of things in general so I was pretty surprised at how much I liked how it looked and felt in my hands.

It was, cold metallic, small, sleek and completely solid. It had no give in it at all and felt like a magic rock. The solidness of it made it feel futuristic. I find that I like my SSD laptop a lot more than the old HDD one for similar reasons. I think it has to do with it not revealing anything about how it works.

I imagine artifacts of the future continuing along these lines. Impenetrable to analysis by the naked A solid mass of synthetic minerals arranged in a very precise way so that electrons are precisely directed this way or that way. But to the naked eye, there is no cause and effect beyond the minimal input and output.

On the opposite side, I can get a lot of enjoyment from messing around with something like a foot-treadle loom or 18th century brass navigation instruments. Even just looking at them is fun. They are complicated enough to be very clever and interesting. Too clever to invent yourself. But, they are still simple enough to understand using your eyes. You can get an "aha!" from seeing the flying shuttle work on a loom. The objects themselves being so common in mythology also adds to the flavor. You can see the incredible potential of adding more gears and levers.

It's an accessible cleverness that you can experience pretty directly. I find it fascinating that space cowboy fiction & steampunk exist. First, future tense nostalgia is an interesting concept. Second, I think it shows a kind of longing for objects that are both futuristic but understandable.

The loom is obviously a human artifact. The ipod is something we intellectually understand to be an artifact, but emotionally it doesn't feel like human one. A magic object doesn't hint at its workings.

Beyond the practical advantages of a modular device, I think there is a steampunk-esque appeal to the idea. We could weld together a brass spaceship using an energy crystal to power the electron sail (both naturally obtained by barter or pilage ).

Once upon a time, when I was younger, I felt very strongly that I needed a computer with everything replaceable. I wanted to replace a CPU when it got too slow, new graphics card, upgradable RAM, storage, etc. But I found that in the end while I'd make small upgrades, I still replaced my computers at close to the same rate. That because some standard that was built into the old machine was no longer fast enough or wide enough for newer uses, or an interconnect standard changed (think ISA, to PCI, to PCI-X, to PCI-e) The other reason is while i could upgrade some parts, I couldn't upgrade all the parts, and pretty soon those parts were now two or three years old. They were no longer as reliable as a brand new system.

I wonder with these modular phone ideas, if we're looking at the beige box PC industry all over? And whether it will be a good fit to mobile or whether you'll buy your modular system in a year, and then find in another two years that there is a new modular interconnect version without backwards compatibility, and gradually you won't be able to find modules that work with your current frame, so you have to replace that, and maybe the some of your old modules don't work with the new frame, so you have to replace them at the same time. Like a lot of beige bok PC geek, you'll end up with a drawer of old modules in a drawer that you hardly ever find a need for, but you cant bring yourself to throw them away unless they're actually broke. The smart person will just buy all new modules when they replace the frame (that what most people did when they replaced their beige box, because why upgrade but still carry over that old junky graphics card). Pretty soon your at a point where the primary benefit of modularity in not upgrading pieces, but the ability to spec exactly the phone you want when buying. But in reality there are a lot of phones on the market now, and you can come pretty close.

I don't know that this will be the case, but its how I'd bet it would end up playing out.

This is absolutely the right direction, but not in the way you think. This shouldn't be branded as a phone -- size and look matter too much. It should be branded the tool of the future, designed for people people in the field: electricians / construction workers / scientists / tinkerers. Let me plug in an altimeter, leveler, or multimeter. That is what is missing on my iPhone, and this is the first thing I've seen modular enough to pull it off.

And, yes, I've been thinking Tricorder this whole time=).

I think John Gruber over at Daring Fireball said it best:

"I remain highly skeptical that a modular design can compete in a product category where size, weight, and battery life are at such a premium. Even if they can bring something to market, why would any normal person be interested in a phone like this?"

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/04/15/project-ara

I'd actually love it if this idea extended far enough to let me double my "phone" as an impromptu laptop/desktop. I know that we can use a bluetooth keyboard or whatever and kind of simulate things. But I'd love to carry around a single computing device that I can drop into a cradle at home and it's using my two big desktop monitors and nice keyboard/mouse, and when out and about, head into a coffee shop and swap the screen out for a larger screen and keyboard, and then head onto the subway and just swap the screen back and use it like a phone. Then end of the day, head to the gym and swap out a few parts and have it just play music for me while I work out. Head out for a hike on the weekend and configure it like the Gym, but put in a better GPS unit and a bigger battery or something. Go to the store and swap out the GPS unit for a barcode scanner so I can comparison shop a bit. If something breaks, I can fix it myself. Go home and plug it into an HDMI port and watch movies or play games or something. Want to read a book? Swap out the screen for an e-ink screen. Going on a trip? swap in the GPS device, big battery and the Nokia camera module so I can use my nice lenses and find my way to the sites. Swap the screen for the bigger screen later so I can review and edit my photos for the day.

I could trade my notebook, camera, desktop, console, media devices, mp3 player, e-book reader and tablet in entirely.

But all my data is present for me and I can work on it, context appropriate to the interfaces I have available at that moment.

I wouldn't mind having a few bits and parts floating around my backpack if it gave me the flexibility to do that kind of thing.

The first time I saw a modular phone was long ago (2000) in the lab of a very large hardware company where they had a prototype from a start-up they'd invested in.

It was made like a deck of cards, cpu, display/kbd, battery and cell components could all be swapped out. There even was a camera module for the back. It didn't make it. The main reasons iirc were that people see phones as integrated wholes, that contacts breed failure and that making an integrated phone versus one made out of pieces is simply cheaper.

Curious how this one will fare!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks

People are viewing this project as a 'lego' phone that sounds great in theory but doesn't charm practically. However manufacturers can take a middle ground approach where future electronics slowly move towards hot swappable components. Upgrading & replacing defective parts shouldn't require a screw driver and perhaps as easy as plugging in a USB cable.

When I'm buying a high end phone & spending $600, I'd want it to last 5-6+ years. However the current ones typically stay relevant for barely 2 years and the residual value is below $200. How about a phone that I'm not scared to drop because if something breaks, I can easily swap out a new LCD, ofcourse at a reasonable cost. Many users like me would be willing to sacrifice the form factor slightly to get the ability to make my device last longer.

However all this goes against how manufacturers make money i.e. make you buy new product frequently & charge an arm & a leg for repairs.

I find this interesting in contrast to Nexus devices. Two or three years ago, most Android phones had SD cards and removable batteries. These features have been conspicuously absent from recent Nexus phones in spite of their appeal to the power-user and developer markets who are among the most likely to want such features.

I hope it gets some traction. I'm seeing a lot of sameness in high-spec Android phones, and something like this might help manufacturers learn what kinds of variations might sell without having to take the risk of mass-producing and marketing a new model.

P.S. - if any manufacturers are reading this, I want a high-spec Android phone the size of an iPhone. My Nexus 5 is somewhat uncomfortable in my pocket and too hard to use one-handed due to its size.

Yeah, right.

I remember computers built in the 90s and 2000s, touting their modular construction and never having to buy a new system again. I wonder if those machines are still in operation?

I think what would guarantee longevity is something that is rock-solid good, inexpensive, repairable, and easy to develop on. I'm thinking of track records of computers like the Commodore 64, iMac, or in vehicles like the beetle, video game consoles, ipod, iphone etc.

If one of the modules can be a keyboard, then I know a fair few people who will buy one...

Yeah this is probably just one of Google's projects where they try and make a device that totally uses the concept, realise that most of it's pretty bad and redo it with a device that uses it for the single part that worked. The cynic in me says 'replaceable battery' but I'd like to see replaceable SOC.

As technology continues to shrink more functionality into less space, it crosses the threshold where human limits require the device be at least this big (whatever that size/shape minimum is). A screen can only be so small before it's practically unreadable. A touch area must provide at least so much space between tap targets and accommodate "fat fingers". The box of a phone must be big enough to hold comfortably to an ear. A small matchbox-size device would just plain be too awkward to use.

Seems Apple initiated the unchangeable phone (no swappable battery, extremely tight/solid tolerances) in part to get all that core functionality inside a box that small. Sufficient battery required XYZ volume; making it removable wasted a nontrivial amount of that, affecting talk time & durability.

Now that core functionality can be smaller than the minimum usable size, including battery life acceptable to most users, there's some space again to "waste" on components like pluggable interconnects, module packaging (so a part is not fully exposed when removed), air gaps, etc.

"This here's a good axe. It's had nine handles and three heads."

"This is the last phone I bought. It's had nine batteries, three CPUs, two displays, four radios, ..."

If you read Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution [1] book (sequel to Innovator's Dilemma), you'll see him talk about "integration" and "disintegration" (basically the modularization of a product or market).

So in the early days of a new market/category of product, the products are highly integrated, for several reasons. One is that the market is still new, so there isn't much of an "ecosystem" to begin with. Another is that the company with the "first mover's advantage" wants to keep stuff proprietary as much as possible, and another is that the product still kind of "sucks" in some areas (camera, battery life, in early days of the iPhone for example - compared to the traditional competition). So they need to make everything work as tightly as possible, to squeeze all the possible optimization out of it.

But eventually, the market becomes mature, the ecosystem grows, and the products become "good enough" for most people. So much of that extreme optimization or need to keep everything proprietary and in-house isn't needed anymore, and you actually start getting some advantages from the modularization of the market, such as buying a better modem than you can make from a "modem company", and so on.

For a while I wasn't sure this was going to happen to the smartphone market (ignoring the fact that there has been an increasing trend towards customization through colors and whanot), because for one the smartphone is a very tighly put together product, and it's hard to imagine how it could've been separated into a dozen different pieces without being junk, and two, for a while the trend was towards increasing "closeness" of devices, rather than openness.

But it seems it's going to happen, and ARA looks just about right (I wasn't a big fan of the Phonebloks pin-model). Still, even if the strategy here is "correct", and most likely on the right side of history, Google will still need to excel at execution, and make sure using such a phone gives very few disadvantages compared to a regular phone, but many more advantages (being able to use whatever camera you want, without buying a $700 phone every year, and so on). Otherwise, people could be turned off by the initial version, and then it will be a lot harder to convince them what a good idea this is. But for now I'm optimistic.

[1] - http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustainin...

I give this about a 5% chance of success, and 1% market share, maybe less, if it does succeed. That's still more than 10 million units per year, so not a failure. But this isn't going to be your next phone.

If it falls much below that unit volume, the scheme implodes because the optional components will not find enough of a market to get manufactured.

In order to succeed, the internal connectivity scheme needs to not go obsolete over at least two, and preferably three product generations.

It also needs to find a market. People still build their own PCs for gaming, for lab automation, and other distinctly minority pursuits. So far, the niche for this product seems to be "people who find the idea attractive but can't articulate an actual need."

Raise your hand if you bought an "upgradable" mother board in the 286 and 386 days.... Do you still have it?

I have a computer that still uses some of the same screws that my 486 used. For a long time I kept the original hard disk spinning even though I didn't store stuff on it... But when IDE connectors went away I stopped bothering with keeping it for nostalgia.

Even my case is no longer compatible, the power supply stopped being compatible long ago.

Some of this is "advancements" some of it is just that manufactures want to sell you new stuff.

Houses are about the only thing that are modular and you can say you will only need to buy one... The house I grew up in is nearly 200 years old. So far it hasn't needed to be replaced to do incompatibility.

There is a market, or should I say: there are markets: * people who often broke their screens (my current boss is at 3 screens in 2 years, and counting) * enthusiast, early adopters, developpers,... * There is probably a good way to market it in developing countries too.

I would love having that phone, even more with a firefoxOS running on it. Having that plateform with open hardware specifications would be a huge boon for it to become a viable ecosystem. I could see firefoxOS and windows phone boarding it quite easily if it take.

PS: whereas specifications are open or not, IDK at the moment, not a lot of reliable information being available. Wishful thinking on my part I suppose. Still hoping.

As someone mourning the fall of the full-qwerty physical keyboard phone (yes there are the new BB phones, but by the next time I upgrade I anticipate that BB will be dead), this gives me hope. There may not be enough people who want them for manufacturers to make whole phones, but maybe there are enough to support a market in quality keyboard modules.

This is not marketed at me.

My phone buying thought process: Does this phone have the software I care about? Are apps tested to work with my exact device? Sold.

I do not want to spend a split second thinking about modules or RAM or anything and I'm a very technical person. I cannot imagine my mom dealing with this crap.

What is the market here? I would pay a premium to NOT deal with modules.

Where are all those comments, blog posts and experts' analyses saying Phonebloks could never work in this world?

I think the real-world use cases for a modular consumer device--like the Sasquatch of meaningful OOP code reuse--is overstated.

I think this could work for business use. But the consumer equation is tricky. Phones are fashion. Also phones take a lot of abuse.

I really don't think phones will stay the way they are for decades. And modular phones definetely won't bear up for decades.

At some point every piece of the phone will have been exchanged, making it a completely new phone.

I wish someone had done this for PCs 20 years ago.

heh. you guy really have any hope? just count the number of devices google and its nexus partners released without even a sd card slot! motorola too since the google devices started.

the market demands that fast obsolency and they are evil now. the only thing holding back the nexus one as a strong daily phone is that it have no space for more than 5 modern apps. it does if you hack android 2.3 to install apps on the SD...

anyway. i wouldnt hold my breath. this is being done just to fail and harm other people pursuing it honestly. cynic much? probably. but i am mostly stating facts. how much does a sd slot saved in costs from your $600 phone? nothing. hiw many years its lack cut from the device longevity? more than half.

edit: plus the feature they advertise more is electro magnets! on a device where the biggest concern is battery... and which will have a case anyway that could hold everything together in case they used simple mechanical latches.

It's a little gross that they seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project and then entirely erased any traces of the original product and its creators. Hopefully that team's still involved and getting compensated...