Phonebloks - Did you see this ?

Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Phonebloks - Did you see this ?

Armitage1982(Posted 2013) [#1]
http://youtu.be/oDAw7vW7H0c

Maybe it's possible !
Why not ?


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#2]
As a concept I think that right there might just totally change the face of the mobile market, IF.. they can get it off the ground, and IF they can resolve all the technical issues.


computercoder(Posted 2013) [#3]
Very cool idea. I agree with Taiphoz that its got some ground work to go before it will even be viable. Plus they'd need the support of several major players (companies) to buy into it. I'd love to see it happen though. :)


garyk1968(Posted 2013) [#4]
That is very cool!

But I don't see how you interchange different size bloks, say if you want a bigger camera or bigger battery when surely the pins have to connect to the PCB at specific points.


Armitage1982(Posted 2013) [#5]
But I don't see how you interchange different size bloks, say if you want a bigger camera or bigger battery when surely the pins have to connect to the PCB at specific points.

I don't know.
I guess it's something engineers and developers will have to work out. Take it as a challenge :D

For example : since everything is nano these days, maybe each modules could be depth separated from the block. So whatever the size of the block each layer is sure to stay connected to a specific material.

Or maybe the modules plug will have multiple predetermined positions to respect allowing them in the conception phase to takes logical space and form.

Or why not thinking about a new universal plugin system a bit like USB.

The biggest challenge however is not technical but more commercial/marketing.
We already know we could achieve incredible things. Most of the time it's just a question of power and money.

I'm nearly sure we could already produce devices with extended battery life, half power consumption, double processing speed and triple data capacity if we wanted. It's just better to conclude deals and sell the "what in between" for a while as we keep buying all these stuff.


SLotman(Posted 2013) [#6]
Not feasible.

That idea probably comes from someone who don't understand anything about *integrated circuits* and how they work.


Soap(Posted 2013) [#7]
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m4pmy/eli5_why_is_phonebloks_a_bad_idea/


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#8]
even if it were technically feasible, even if it was possible to maintain OS drivers for each swappable part, the mobile phone manufacturers make more money off selling the entire phone for little upgrades. that's how the iPhone is cashing in.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#9]
A route they could take would be discovery signals, as you connect a block to the board it would initially identify itself and its type to the board, an on board cpu would then decide what to do with the data that block produces.

You know what they say, if everyone who has every made anything worth while listened to the people telling them it cant be done, we would still be sitting in caves thinking the world was flat and that stars hung in the sky.

I really hope this gets the traction and chance it deserves.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#10]
We could do that with computers, too. It would be a bit bigger than an ordinary laptop, so we could call it a "desktop".

Oh, wait...


Soap(Posted 2013) [#11]
It is not that it can't be done, it's that it is an old idea with a marketing spin. Execution matters. If someone can make it work then great, but ideas are not worth anything, and their ideas were plainly not thought out well.

They want to solve waste and lower the price by making a component based phone. Except that not having all of the components designed together for maximum efficiency, having components with their own layers of material would cost more and waste more. It would be bulkier, heavier, less resistant to damage, more vulnerable to every day elements.

Wouldn't it be great if we had personal jetpacks? We can have them now, but they are prohibitively expensive and wasteful with current tech.

They are marketing this very old component based idea except they do not have the missing link of new tech to make it better in every way than what is already common.

The parts which matter most are the screen, the battery, and everything else as a unit. More phones used to be able to have those all replaced independently, but now many do not even let you replace the battery with convenience, but it is still a tradeoff for what the customer wants to buy (higher quality, not having to be made to think, keeping things simple), and it is the market which ultimately sways what people focus on making commercially.

Most of us have desktops which we build from components, but we are power users. Normal users increasingly do not want to be bothered with all of that. They want a black box which abstracts away the complexity of building what they want. Even if it costs more.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#12]
I'm not saying it will ever get made, but I don't agree, the concept is amazing, and the technology exists right now to make it, its all about getting the right people interested in it.

Which I think is what the media release for it is all about, all that saving waste I laughed at hard, I think thats nothing more than a hook, something they can tout to get people to "stay a while and listen" to the rest of their ideas.

as with all technology things start out life large and clunky, but after a while and a few revisions they get smaller, neater, more compact, the first phone might suck, but a generation down the line and we could have a modular phone that looks as hot as my galaxy s4 but has modular parts.


zoqfotpik(Posted 2013) [#13]
This is an interesting idea for any sort of electronics, but I really can't see this getting off the ground. A lot of it sounded to me like it was made by someone with a rather simplistic idea of electronics hardware. The block that controls the speed!? If only things were that easy in the real world...

Why in the world would companies ever get behind a standard that threatened their ability to sell $500 slugs that need to be upgraded every two years?


programmer(Posted 2013) [#14]
Why the PhoneBloks phone will never happen:
http://www.genericmaker.com/2013/09/why-phonebloks-phone-will-never-happen.html


Soap(Posted 2013) [#15]
>We’ve been working on Project Ara for over a year.
http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-hello-ara.html

Some good discussion: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1pg3en/so_remember_how_we_all_had_a_good_laugh_at/


zoqfotpik(Posted 2014) [#16]
Update: Apparently this idea has gotten some big-name support from Google.

We'll see if it goes anywhere, the Goog has proven itself not to be infallible.