Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
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Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#2The 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!
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#3I 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."
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#4It'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...
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#5I 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.
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#6It'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...
The Phonebloks creators work for them.
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#7I 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…
If all my module slots can go to batteries, I'll be tempted.
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#8I 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?"
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#9If 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...
Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project
#10I 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.
Is that a new phone though?
invents the question of the philosopher's modular mobile phone