Remember when desktop PC where made from interchangeable components? How many people actually upgraded them instead of buying a new, boxed one?
Are you joking?
Phonebloks
31–40 of 71 posts
Re: Phonebloks
#32I 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.
But then you also need to include those features that most frequently crap out: screen, battery (easy enough), jacks (maybe a block of jacks -- power, microusb, headphones?). Otherwise you'll be upgrading memory and camera on a broken phone. It's a wonderful concept, but extraordinarily hard to pull off. I'm glad he's trying to find partners before any thought of crowdsourcing.
Why would you -have- to? I've never broken any of those things personally, other than the typical battery charge degradation. If the camera+battery+memory are modules, it may be cheaper just to replace/tradein the main body over doing a repair.
Handwavy on the costs, but modular is definitely more expensive - being able to trick out your phone with bigger memory and large-aparture camera may be worth it to a certain set of customers.
Agree it's a wonderful but hard to implement concept.
Re: Phonebloks
#33My biggest gripe with this is, what problem does this actually solve?
Phones exist as they are as a sealed unit, so if something fails or you want something new, you buy it from the manufacturer or network.
Networks or manufacturers wouldn't want this kind of thing because it would affect their profits, so what's in it for them? What solution is it offering them?
That's before we even get into the engineering flaws...
Re: Phonebloks
#34People don't bother upgrading their PC boxes so why would they care about updating part of their phone ?
Because the innards of a PC are a complicated mess compared to the back of this phone?
Re: Phonebloks
#35Relatedly, the Fairphone is shipping now: http://www.fairphone.com/
"Fair" in the sense of "ethically sourced tantalum, etc"; but they've also thought about e-waste and deliberately included a replaceable battery.
Re: Phonebloks
#36My biggest gripe with this is, what problem does this actually solve? Phones exist as they are as a sealed unit, so if something fails or you want something new, you buy it from the manufacturer or network. Networks or manufacturers wouldn't want this kind of thing because it would affect their profits, so what's in it for them? What solution is it offering them? That's before we even get into the engineering flaws..…
Well standards and replaceable parts brought the PC to world domination.
And the networks should be removed from the device business at all.
So a smartphone that could be assembled and upgraded with full control and root access is idea that I stand behind. And if it forces the carries to compete on services and not lock people with contracts all the better.
Re: Phonebloks
#37I think this idea is brilliant. I may be in the minority but I think this would be a great thing for young kids to teach them how components can be swapped out very easily. I would get one of these for my 10 year just to watch him figure out what he'd like to add or upgrade.
Re: Phonebloks
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
E-ink has too many problems, and it's not very good for anything other than mostly static content. If you're thinking "like Pebble" - Pebble doesn't use e-ink. It's using a type of LCD similar to PixelQi. Mirasol on the other hand, has a ton of potential, and it seems to improve the overall battery life of a device by at least 3x (which means the display itself should be many times more efficient than LCD). Too bad n…
Despite the disadvantages, I would really like an e-ink phone (and netbook) for the significant increase in battery life it could give. The software could be designed so that it is usable on e-ink. No animations, no reliance on color for indicators, flipping instead of scrolling, etc. As you say, it would only really work for static content, but for me that is fine.
So basically a (non-Fire) Kindle in a smaller form and with more apps?
Re: Phonebloks
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
There should also be a better way to return phones for recycling. Mining the gold and minerals is destructive and it's weird to me that it's easier and cheaper to dig up ore and process it than to grind up old tech and process that.
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... )
Which is an enormous racket and close to impossible to comply with economically for small manufacturers in some countries.
As an example, in Germany, if you are a small electronics manufacturer and sign up to the system, you get entered into a lottery weighted by the amount of devices (measured by weight) you ship, and whenever a container of e-waste gets filled, a randomly selected unlucky participant has to take possession of said container, no matter where it happens to be or what it's full of, and find some way to dispose of it. It's absolutely insane. In addition, you have to pay a fee to get to participate, and also you are subject to random inspections by an entity with absolutely no oversight that is legally prevented from having competitors. You have to pay for the inspections yourself too, to the same entity, which also runs said lottery.
There's no option to only accept your own devices for recycling, and also no option to contribute to a shared fund that takes care of it all. There's a small industry that will sell you INSURANCE against winning the shit lottery.
Re: Phonebloks
#40My biggest gripe with this is, what problem does this actually solve? Phones exist as they are as a sealed unit, so if something fails or you want something new, you buy it from the manufacturer or network. Networks or manufacturers wouldn't want this kind of thing because it would affect their profits, so what's in it for them? What solution is it offering them? That's before we even get into the engineering flaws..…
> "what problem does this actually solve?"
This solves a customer's problem.
> "Phones exist as they are as a sealed unit, so if something fails or you want something new, you buy it from the manufacturer or network."
This is the problem that it solves. It's obviously a great feature from the manufacturer's point of view.
> "Networks or manufacturers wouldn't want this kind of thing because it would affect their profits, so what's in it for them? What solution is it offering them?"
This attitude makes them prime candidates to be disrupted. If someone can provide a better experience for the customer that solves the same problem that you solve, then you're at risk of being eliminated.
> "That's before we even get into the engineering flaws..."
This is my biggest concern with this project. Still, good on them for trying. A lot of disruptive technology comes from technologies written off as too-difficult or too-complex to make work.