Screw Apple! Check this out!

[Knowing]

So basically I found this phone idea that was brilliant! So the way the phone works is with blocks. Like speaker blocks or better camera blocks. Or larger storage blocks. I think this might be one of the best smart phone ideas to ever come around. What do you think?
Here is a video. This is kind of late though I think Motorola is already creating a version of the phone.


Website V

https://phonebloks.com

[F13ND]

From my limited knowledge of electronics, this doesn't look like it would work easily.

[Masakari]

As much as I'd love to see this happen, both technically speaking and from a marketing standpoint, it will be very hard to actually design, and no one but power users will want this phone.

[NerevarineKing]

As much as I'd love to see this happen, both technically speaking and from a marketing standpoint, it will be very hard to actually design, and no one but power users will want this phone.

This

[MasterChef]

I think I'll just stick with real phones thanks.

I understand the idea behind it, but I have a hard time believing that it would work well.

[frostdillicus]

Smartphones are a delicate balance between components engineered together in such a way as to minimize power usage. This system would negate almost all of the benefits of that. There would be so much power loss simply due to having to shove power over the interconnects. You would either end up with a phone that has almost no battery life, or you would have to carry spares, or you end up with a phone with good battery life but is terribly underpowered.

Bad idea all around. Tightly integrated systems are not modular for a reason.

[Greebo]

I really hope Motorolla can pull this off. They have a prototype in development ("Project Ara") http://www.dscout.com/ara

Allowing a 3rd party to fairly easily add new functionality to a phone has got to be good.

[dredfox]

If this does make it to market, it will probably be modular at the assembly line not at the end user. I doubt we'll see upgradeable phones, more likely manufacturers will save money with standardized pinouts on chips and common standards for power.

[black_and_blue]

Conceptually, I think it's pretty neat. That said, I really can't see it working just because the current price-point of phones is sufficiently low that people are not likely to replace the parts individually even if they can.

When's the last time an average, non-computer-literate person replaced just the video card of their PC?

[Zork Nemesis]

When's the last time an average, non-computer-literate person replaced just the video card of their PC?

Most average, non-computer-literate people don't have video cards in their PCs to begin with, often opting for cheap 200-300 dollar models that are really only good for office work.

Though your point still stands.

[arfy4]

This is a cool idea that won't work. It takes a lot of doing to make the parts of a smartphone small enough to fit in the phone, this just would be very difficult to make work very well

[MrBlah]

I wish they would do with a tablet or laptop. I've been waiting for that for a long time. And am almost getting to the point of trying to design it myself.