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Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

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Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#41

Post by PeterisP »

regularfry wrote: post #5

So far I've not heard "this can't be done." All I've heard is "I don't know how this might be done." Huge difference there. I also hear a fair bit of "this shouldn't be done", which I find incredibly disappointing. Here's a hypothetical: we already know how to do noisy, shared-media device interconnects. It's called 802.11. Look at the size of wifi adapters: you can get a usable signal that works over meters from som…

The point of the article isn't really "this can't be done"; but "if this is done, it's inferior to a non-modular phone".

Even perfectly functioning modular plugins take up extra space - a "classic" phone can instead either be smaller/thinner, or put in a bit extra battery in those cubicmillimetres; which both make the "same" phone better.

Modularity imposes a cost, it's a tradeoff - and even for laptops we're seeing that people tend to prefer a bit of size/weight/battery life rather than modularity.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#42

Post by jdiez17 »

regularfry wrote: post #5

So far I've not heard "this can't be done." All I've heard is "I don't know how this might be done." Huge difference there. I also hear a fair bit of "this shouldn't be done", which I find incredibly disappointing. Here's a hypothetical: we already know how to do noisy, shared-media device interconnects. It's called 802.11. Look at the size of wifi adapters: you can get a usable signal that works over meters from som…

>Here's a hypothetical: we already know how to do noisy, shared-media device interconnects. It's called 802.11.

And leaking all of your secret data in the process.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#43

Post by mxfh »

codeka wrote: post #25

> the stated motivation for this design is to reduce electrical waste. The best way to do that in the short term is to ensure devices are more repairable Right, a replaceable screen and battery and an SD card slot would get you 99% of the features you'd actually want from phonebloks, and it's actually something that would be achievable (if there were demand, which I think is the biggest problem here: there's just no…

A replaceable battery, SD card and easily replaceable screens were all features of phones available more than 5 years ago, yet these features disappeared because the iPhone showed that most consumers don't value those features over a sleek integrated lifestyle product.

Besides all points mentioned already, I just can't think of a way to protect the pin-connection from wear in daily use without adding an additional shell or individual screws, which would make it even more bulky. Simply haven't seen a single miniature socket yet that works well under constant external stress.

Regarding the proposed design, with all it's sharp edges and deep ridges I'm already looking forward to weekly lint removal sessions.

In terms of total energy waste it might be worth considering that there's not only one logistic process anymore but a mere 5 to 10(?) with each has it's own packaging, transportation and handling footprint. So it's debatable that the total environmental impact might be actually worse than that of a 2 year life cycle smartphone.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#45

Post by mabhatter »

codeka wrote: post #25

> the stated motivation for this design is to reduce electrical waste. The best way to do that in the short term is to ensure devices are more repairable Right, a replaceable screen and battery and an SD card slot would get you 99% of the features you'd actually want from phonebloks, and it's actually something that would be achievable (if there were demand, which I think is the biggest problem here: there's just no…

Except manufacturing and cost considerations go exactly the other way. An iPhone 5S entire electronics that make it go is slightly smaller an an average stick of gum.... That's all the "modules" except screen and battery. It's made in one shot my high-speed machines that took about 30 seconds from bare board to operating phone parts.. Parts are so small you'd need a magnifying glass to handle them by hand.

The current situatuion is about as good as it gets. There are enough iPhones sold third parties can copy parts or simply canibalize broken ones for repairs. Apple only updates models once a year, so that means there is lots of effort by third parties because their efforts pay off a whole 3 years of repairs. Fixing individual boards takes $1000+ of lab equipment and 2x what the part is worth for labor.

Even Apple's MacBooks only have one main board that's small as possible. That's why Apple started using REAL glass screens, and metal bodies that can be pealed down for their bare scrap costs. To get the ELECTRONICS metals back is going to require some kind of furnace that can contain toxic fumes and perform exotic metals separation. Even then 3/4 of electronic waste is pastic and F4 circuit board material which is utterly useless except to burn off. That leaves 2/3 of at waste as dirt cheap tin-lead solder and a small bit of super fancy alloys.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#46

Post by est »

PeterisP wrote: post #40
calibwam wrote: post #20

People are complaining about fragmentation on Android, heck people are even complaining about it on iPhones. How would you develop a good mobile OS with apps on hardware you can't test against? Even if the hardware problems was solved now, I do not think people would be happy to dev against the "platform".

People did just fine developing applications for PC with the huge variety of possible hardware, and for web where target hardware differs in size and power by multiple orders of magnitude.

> People did just fine developing for PC

So fine that we ended up stuck with 1366x768 for the last decade.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#47

Post by Kliment »

telephonetemp wrote: post #35
codeka wrote: post #25

> the stated motivation for this design is to reduce electrical waste. The best way to do that in the short term is to ensure devices are more repairable Right, a replaceable screen and battery and an SD card slot would get you 99% of the features you'd actually want from phonebloks, and it's actually something that would be achievable (if there were demand, which I think is the biggest problem here: there's just no…

Could you standardize how screens are connected?

The actual communications protocol is already standardized, so it's more a matter of connectors and form factor.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#48

Post by hclee »

Phone like phone we see today uses very highly complicated chips and its connections to each functional modules. Something that can be detachable easily can be really surprising.

Mobile phone SoC chip (Application processor) is heading into very uncertainty area as fabrication process require too small transistors now. Hope that dealing super sensitive chips, can be guided by chip experts.

Putting everything physically close in one chip is also cost and integrity issues. More functions in a smaller area = less die cost. Blok based components would have to consider how to compete cost where $10 everything possible SoC is ready.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#49

Post by smackfu »

sitharus wrote: post #16
lessnonymous wrote: post #11

This is one of those ideas that look good on paper (or youtube) but just isn't practical. There's absolutely no spare space in a modern phone. If you make it modular, each 'module' has to have enough space for its component, PLUS space to bring it up to the next module size. This will make the phone HUGE. The concept of an upgradable device is, however, great. Just not in the manufacturer's interest. Apple lose out i…

You can clearly see the cost of modularity if you compare my current laptop to my previous one. My current laptop is a 15" retina MacBook Pro. It isn't upgradable in any real sense of the word. My previous laptop was a 15" MacBook Pro. I could upgrade the RAM and HDD, and with little difficulty replace the battery. The upgradable one is 5mm-ish thicker and about 400 grams heavier. Not a true apples-to-apples comparis…

Definitely agree with you on the space/volume issue, but I don't think most of that weight gain comes from modularity. Because 400 grams is a lot of weight. I think it's probably mostly the hard drive weight.

Re: Why Phonebloks Will Never Happen

#50

Post by regularfry »

jdiez17 wrote: post #42
regularfry wrote: post #5

So far I've not heard "this can't be done." All I've heard is "I don't know how this might be done." Huge difference there. I also hear a fair bit of "this shouldn't be done", which I find incredibly disappointing. Here's a hypothetical: we already know how to do noisy, shared-media device interconnects. It's called 802.11. Look at the size of wifi adapters: you can get a usable signal that works over meters from som…

>Here's a hypothetical: we already know how to do noisy, shared-media device interconnects. It's called 802.11. And leaking all of your secret data in the process.

Nope. Not more than they do now.

Look, the point isn't the specific protocol, the point is that it's possible.

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