Phonebloks

Some issues I notice:

1. Blocks are having different sizes. Sure you may have some fillers, but they don't look nice. A light drop could shatter the whole thing (phone must be able to take hits and drops for many reasons)

2. The pluggable architecture calls for the backbone to be some sort of shared bus, example will be I2C, which may not be efficient for high-bandwidth transfer (e.g. camera to memory). A dedicated bus for some modules will just break the 'plugability'. Mitigation could be to zone the backbone so that each zone's traffic is limited, well, that is not simple...

In Europe, the manufacturer is _legally required_ to either accept old devices for recycling or contribute to a shared fund for doing this. (The program is called "WEEE": http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/1... )

My concerns were similar.

What bus can be used which will be fast enough for all of the components to work together? Sticking a cpu, camera, memory, and screen on the same bus will cause an amazing bottleneck.

How will the components be made to fit in the same thickness? Can you really fit a higher resolution camera in a larger (but not thicker) package?

In that regard, what's to stop someone from making an uber battery which only takes up a few slots but then covers the previous layer on the back, thereby increasing the real estate?

How much force can those pins hold?

Will the bins be biased in some way such that the positive will be every N pins and negative every M pins, and data lines every L pins or something? If so, will the holes be keyed to ensure proper placement?

There are a lot of questions to be answered before this thing can come to fruition, and I think the bus is going to be the biggest limitation. There's a reason this phone doesn't exist yet, as I'm sure hardware manufacturers would love to continue selling people hardware over and over, but there's a genuine problem with bandwidth in this setup where anything can go anywhere.

A better solution would be universal plugs/ports with specific uses for each port. Battery port, CPU port, memory port, and then accessory ports, just like a modern desktop. This would allow the components with the largest bottlenecks to have their own dedicated bus.

In order to reduce electronics waste, we should recycle what's already there. Not invent a new phone that's easier to recycle. Also, people will want to upgrade or change their phone configuration even when it's not broken. I don't understand why the video is pitching the product as if its sustainable and fighting waste. It's not.

I completely understand the appeal of the concept, but it seems like it would be significantly more expensive for the same features of another phone. I'd be concentrating on the features that most frequently drive upgrades other than the screen: memory and camera.