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Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

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11–20 of 154 posts

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#11

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...

From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#Development I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to say they "seemingly picked up the PhoneBloks project."

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#12
post #8

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

He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#13
post #5

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.

Is that a new phone though? invents the question of the philosopher's modular mobile phone

The ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that raises the exact same question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_change

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#14
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.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#15
post #7
post #3

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…

If all my module slots can go to batteries, I'll be tempted.

I think they said at least 2 modules can be used as battery (the larger ones).

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#16
post #3

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…

But this isn't going to be your next phone.

This is Hacker News, where people are disproportionately far more likely to buy such a thing than the average consumer. I would expect to see the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 significantly overrepresented here as well; the only people I know in person who own them are hackers.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#17
post #8

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

He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.

He's not suggesting there a no advantages , just that the ones that it does provide won't be enough to compete against non modular phones.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#18
post #8

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

He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.

You've misread his statement. He sees the benefit, but points out that the tradeoffs will be the main areas of competition among smartphones: size, weight, battery life. All three will be worse in a modular phone. You'll also get less for your money overall. Not to mention that having to choose among components just adds an additional layer of option stress that most consumers don't want. Sure, there's a market for a modular phone, but it's not going to seriously compete against the Galaxy or the iPhone in the mass market.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#19
post #8

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

He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.

Well, the problem's just (obviously) that if you ever open up an iPhone (or I suspect any competing phone), every cubic millimetre of it is filled with things that do stuff. To add all the panels that bridge components, the connecting hardware etc can only add weight and space. It'll be interesting to see if Google can make it work, but you can't say that it's not unjustified skepticism. In terms of 'any advantage', I interpreted it as 'any overall advantage', and I think I probably agree with him.

Re: Project Ara – Google's modular phone project

#20
post #8

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

He doesn't see any advantage to a modular phone? Then I don't think he's looking hard enough. I stand by my belief that Gruber has backed himself into a corner where he now needs to defend anything Apple does, and attack just about anything the competition does that is at least seen by others as a threat to Apple, if not by him.

No, Gruber has it exactly right, see my comments below on how an older modular phone fared.
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