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The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

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Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#41

Post by serge2k »

beambot wrote: post #23
onli wrote: post #6

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just a…

Full modularity never made sense. The system-level tradeoffs for battery, screen, and antennas are just too astronomical. But one or two expansion slots... now that would've been revolutionary. You could add whatever mattered to you: medical devices, specialized cameras, etc. etc. etc. Instead we're left with shitty USB or audio jack dongles or detached Bluetooth devices. Suck.

> Instead we're left with shitty USB

How is USB not a fantastic answer to the problem you described?

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#42

Post by femto »

swsieber wrote: post #35
femto wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the upgradeable PC ever really work, or did the vast majority of PCs sold go to the dump with exactly the same configuration as sold? After a few years, it becomes a cascade of dependencies: Can't upgrade memory because the old motherboard won't support state of the art DIMMs, the bus used by current cards (ISA, PCI, AGP, PCIx) doesn't match the motherboard, power supply connector has different number of pins, an…

The boon wasn't that consumers could customize their computers - it was that competitors could easy compete on individual parts because of the standardization.

A valid point! The economics of integration seems to be driving us towards single boxes which suit stifled competition?

Is there an opening here for a non-manufacturing "open" standards body to emerge? They could publish mechanical specifications for a "click together phone" and a specification for a simple electrical bus/interconnect (use USB for everything?)

One could envisage a series of standard exterior cases, based on a common unit of measure. Each case might contain openings for screen, camera, connectors, etc. according to the type of device. Inside the case would be spaces for internal modules, also based on the common unit of measure, not specific to any one type of module and with interfaces in standard positions. Exterior cases in the series might include:

* Smartphone

* Tablet

* Laptop

* Desktop

* Media player

Such a movement could arise from the Makerspace movement, as it would be a relatively low cost thing to do? One can imagine a website with specification documents and 3D printer files for the various module outlines. People would then be free to experiment on making new components within this ecosystem.

---

Edit: I'm pessimistic that the above would progress past a hobbyist level as the economics favours an integrated approach, unless it spurs a level of competition and innovation that undercuts the premiums being charged by the makers of walled gardens.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#43

Post by Laforet »

bluedino wrote: post #38
losteric wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that standardization in the PC markets is driven by overlap between enterprise server hardware, enterprise PC hardware, and (incidentally!) consumer PCs... Think about laptops, they've been around for a lot longer and are much closer to desktop PCs. Why hasn't modularization transformed that market? What about tables? Answer: Most consumers don't care. They won't upgrade their PC, their laptop, their ph…

Modular design of PC's made the manufacturers all race to the bottom in price and nobody but Apple has made money from personal computer sales in 15 years.

This is a good point. I've always wondered why PC components have always been priced with total transparency and razor-sharp margins unlike most other kinds of tech.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#44

Post by toast0 »

sjg007 wrote: post #33
toast0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is connectors, there's no room in a phone to have connectors between the motherboard and smallish parts. Modular display and camera can make sense, but more as build time options. How has google not already beaten the iPhone? They have vastly more users, and have very small margins (the end state for PCs)

The iPhone has a better ux and battery life. The software is also likely higher quality.

Modular hardware wouldn't improve ux or software quality. It would probably reduce battery life because there would be less space.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#45

Post by flukus »

serge2k wrote: post #40
onli wrote: post #6

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just a…

> just like the PC ate up the homecomputers Ever increasingly cheap and plentiful clones made computers finally cheap enough for anyone to own? Phones are already way beyond that point. > where if a user needs more ram he would just add more, if he needs a new processor he would just replace the current, if he needs a higher resolution display the old just would get replaced. Why would I ever want to deal with that?…

> Why would I ever want to deal with that?

Because it's cheaper and easier than throwing out a phone and getting a new one. Phones could less 10 years with ad hoc upgrades instead of 2. I'd love to have been able to take my galaxy nexus (best phone ever) and add more ram and a faster processor.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#46

Post by idreyn »

From a layman's perspective, it sounds like they shot themselves in the foot somewhat by taking modularity to a logical extreme — building a highly generalizable bus system that would support connections of any kind of component on any part of the device. I wonder what gains would come from relaxing that requirement, so a certain sector is always reserved for a camera, another for a battery, etc, one for each component that everyone is obviously going to want on their phone but might be upgradable over time. The idea of being able to attach a Geiger counter to your phone is intriguing but that was always going to be a niche within a niche.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#47

Post by Unai »

sjg007 wrote: post #29
jpm_sd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Sorry. Physics. Compared to a lightweight device that fits in your pocket, an IBM PC is huge. Colossal. All the space you could possibly need for modular interconnects, sheet metal sub-chassis-es, proper fasteners, etc. etc. A comparably-modular mobile phone cannot be anything but thick and heavy, unless you would prefer fragile and unusable.

PCs were expensive which created the markets for upgrades and components. Phones are basically disposable.

One could say that's a good reason to push the modular phone.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#48

Post by flukus »

femto wrote: post #32
onli wrote: post #6

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just a…

Did the upgradeable PC ever really work, or did the vast majority of PCs sold go to the dump with exactly the same configuration as sold? After a few years, it becomes a cascade of dependencies: Can't upgrade memory because the old motherboard won't support state of the art DIMMs, the bus used by current cards (ISA, PCI, AGP, PCIx) doesn't match the motherboard, power supply connector has different number of pins, an…

> Did the upgradeable PC ever really work, or did the vast majority of PCs sold go to the dump with exactly the same configuration as sold?

It worked in 90's and early 00's, particularly with RAM, hard drives and CD ROM drives. You could walk into a consumer electronic store and buy these drives stand alone, I don't think you can do that anymore. I was frequently upgrading friends and family computers for beer, anyone technical usually had a bunch of old RAM sticks and hard drives lying around for anyone that wanted them and a new computer frequently meant a new motherboard and case where you could add all the component of the old one.

This was a time where hardware upgrades were a huge deal. Going from 8MB to 16MB of RAM was a lot more valuable than going from 8GB to 16GB is today. And there were frequently software releases that warranted hardware upgrades. For my, buying visual studio necessitated I upgrade my 540MB hard drive to a 3GB one for instance.

> After a few years, it becomes a cascade of dependencies: Can't upgrade memory because the old motherboard won't support state of the art DIMMs, the bus used by current cards (ISA, PCI, AGP, PCIx) doesn't match the motherboard, power supply connector has different number of pins, and if you replace the motherboard to allow a newer component to be plugged in then all of the other old stuff needs to be replaced due to the new motherboard.

Yeah, it became like that in the early 00's from memory after a decade of relative stability. That's when the hardware world got too complicated for a simple software dev like me. Although with everything on SATA and PCIx these days I wonder if I could pick it up again.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#49

Post by flukus »

ebbv wrote: post #20
onli wrote: post #6

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just a…

Do you realize what percent of all IBM compatibles ever had any upgrades done to them internally? Almost none. It seems like a defining feature if you're a nerd like me who did it with all your PCs but most people and most businesses bought them in a configuration and used them in that configuration until they were replaced.

> Do you realize what percent of all IBM compatibles ever had any upgrades done to them internally?

Many, especially in the 90's when compelling software often necessitated hardware upgrades.

Re: The dream of Ara: Inside the rise and fall of Google’s most revolutionary phone

#50

Post by mcphage »

onli wrote: post #6

I don't get it. This is a IBM PC moment right here. Imagine you could standardize the smartphone. Really divide it into block, standardize the communication bus. Make it a PC. It would be huge, eat up the smartphone world, just like the PC ate up the homecomputers. I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone. Android as the OS for an ever-evolving phone, where if a user needs more ram he would just a…

> I even think this is how Google would have beaten the iPhone.

By market share, Google won years ago. By profit, commoditizing the phone hardware even further would drive android manufacturer profit down even further.

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