I was planning on buying the new iPhone as my first iPhone ever. But if this became a thing I'd seriously consider it. Good idea.

But it won't work technically. Incompatibilities, bugs, etc.

Do you work for Samsung, Nokia, Apple or something?

Cause.. how the f*ck could you know?

I work for a software company in QA testings.

Having repaired my iphone, this isn't actually that different to what we have now, except less integrated and uglier and more prone to the incompatibilities and bugs that @ant points out.

It could be made to work, provided there was a firm standard that everybody adhered to... it wouldn't necessarily be as good as they say, and isn't the only possible solution to the problem... for example, manufacturer refurbished phones are another solution, third party remanufacturing would also be technically possible if politically challenging.

They seem to be fairly naive about how things work. It's true that most everything is a separate component, but their "base" would be nearly impossible to make. Every connection would have to be able to switch from being various bus types (CPU, Memory, Storage, Device), to a power type that can feed to various parts in multiple voltages.

What they're proposing is essentially similar to how desktop PCs work.

You have a central motherboard and then you swap in and out components.

But there are several problems with this:

First, a technical challenge: You can't simply rearrange the blocks like that. The connections between the cpu and the ram and storage and power are all different and for good reasons.

Next, upgradability: later this year, I will upgrade my primary work/gaming PC. What it really needs is a new CPU. But a new CPU means a new motherboard and probably new RAM. So I don't see this being as upgradeable as they think.

That said.. those are solvable problems compared to the main issue. Economics.

What is the incentive for Apple, Samsung, HTC, etc to produce one of these, or even parts for one? They would essentially commodify their own products and reduce any point of differentiation.

As an app designer/developer, I'd have to say that I have absolutely no interest in this. It's already challenging enough to support Android devices, where there are SO MANY different flavors and versions out there. If you suddenly had a phone where it could be any combination of pieces and parts... yikes. That sounds like a huge challenge to develop for.

I'd rather figure out better ways to recycle our old devices.

Apple will spend millions to bury this idea.... Or reproduce it and pretend they came up with it.

This guys points are very valid.
I'd be happy to see a modular standard (like ATX) for notebooks/laptops, but there is none.

Truth is - for portable devices consumers demand them to be smaller, cheaper, and have better battery life. PhoneBloks would be larger, more expensive, and more power hungry than the highly-integrated designs for portable electronics nowadays.

I think a practical starting point would be a standard "socket" for an SoC, which could be upgradeable. The part you keep would be the screen, pcb, antennas, etc. The SoC could itself be an MCM, with multiple stacked layers. You would have to upgrade this "base" once in a while too, but only with release of new wireless standards that work at different frequencies.

Having a standard size & voltage lithium battery for phones would be nice too. Could anyone imagine how much it would suck if AA and AAA batteries didn't exist for other electronics?

I also vote microSDXC as standard for flash storage.

I don't see this concept as possible. You can't just take something like a processor or memory and add a few pins for "electronic signals," and call it a working solution. This would require huge amounts of re-engineering and design of whole new architectures and data communication standards. This will never happen. If it does, I will buy 10,000 units.

Also, imagine if this thing got only a single drop of water in one of those many cracks. Toast.

Don't see how it'd work.

However the more I think about phones and how I see them in the future. I don't see them remaining as a one device "thing" like it is now.

I see them being more like a PC. With a processor/storage/etc "brain" bit, a display, extra stuff you have now like headphones etc....and maybe a battery/powering device although I'd hope eventually batteries wouldn't need to be as big as they are...or solar/some other kind of wireless power shows up.

The reason I see it this way is that eventually we're going to have displays where having a big chunk of extra stuff attached to it is going to be really damn annoying....like google glass....or displays that be rolled up....or holographic..or whatever. And I hope we advance past touch screens, because I really dislike them. Really don't like having my finger/hand in the way of what I'm trying to see/accomplish.

So people are going to want a display of choice when "other" stuff shows up.

Then the other guts of the phone....well if you can get them in a case that fits in your pocket, wristwatch, wallet, shoe, keychain, whatever...they are going to be a lot harder to break and need replaced less...or be pretty cheap. Plus if done right they could tie into your home, car, office, etc for more processing power if needed. Then work as more of a conduit to your display than the main processor in circumstances where you're near faster devices.

So in essence, your display would replace a lot of "other" displays potentially as your brain unit connects to other devices to serve up it's abilities to your display....tv, home pc, work pc, car hud, etc.

Course there'd need to be some speed increases in wireless communications...and either some sort of wireless power or some big changes in batteries.

It's also my hope this is the way it goes, because carrying around tech like a phone and trying to work with a tiny display just wears me out.

Like others have pointed out, I don't see this actually working, its an idea with no feasible working theory behind it. Reminds me of Karl Pilkingtons idea of a watch that counts down to your time of death, and Ricky Gervais asked him how it could work, he said "You just pop it on your wrist."

I would argue that the design part is feasible, though I would not put it in "blocks". there has to be a casing or a cover, similar to today's phones. In case the phone drops or something like, you don't want to chase after all the blocks flying in every direction. The insides though could be arranged to be replaced, in a "blockly" kind of way, similarly to SD cards or Sim Cards.

Regarding profitability. There could be some serious business here. Think about the billion dollar phone cover industry we have today. you have so many colors and designs, which are made specifically per phone. There could be a possibility to manufacture hardware that could aim for the "taste" of the target market, within a set measurements and requirements.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Phone, technologie, idea' to 'Phone, technology, idea, concept' - edited by xxovercastxx

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Phone, technology, idea, concept' to 'Phone, technology, idea, concept, modular' - edited by xxovercastxx

Aside from it probably not being workable, I dislike the "we're saving the world" kind of idea they're using to promote this... be honest, they just want to make money.

Being a cynic I would tend to agree with you on that but without knowing more about this guy and what he does I might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now. I do agree that this disposable electronic culture of ours is a problem and is ultimately unsustainable both economically and environmentally.
Of course if the phone manufacturers had their way your phone would promptly die six months after being sold and you'd be contractually obligated to buy a new one.

All of the entrenched companies are already pushing out the standardized modular storage that we used to have (SDHC). Why would they suddenly swing the other direction?

This, I think, is the primary function of the video. The bigger picture is that cell phones are moving rapidly in the wrong direction. Even user replaceable batteries are less commonplace. The only way to stop this trend is to apply market pressure. That is, show them that they will lose sales to a more modular/reusable/upgradable competitor. If the video convinces one device manufacturer to push just a little bit in that direction I'd consider it a win.

The thing is though, the way it's described in this video. Unless I am totally off in LaLa land concerning electronics and how they hook together. There's just no way his power grid section is going to work with 4 connectors. Let's assume 4 connectors is all anything needs, then how do you swap out pieces and re-arrange them to your desire and still have the connections end up to where they hook up properly to others without replacing the grid backing?

So if you need a grid backing for each arrangement, you're not helping your cause.

He's basically saying the grid back is your motherboard, which needs a bare minimum of things to function and it designed for them to hook up in certain ways with a myriad of different pin configurations. And you think of how many things in the PC market aren't QUITE compatible, like they do hokey things even though standards wise they should be compatible....so you have to look at the MFG sites to see if they have tested it with XYZ....

I mean hell anything PC is kind of throwaway as it is now, they cycle in new standards so fast. The only main difference is you can build it like you want it, so you're less likely to replace it soon....and if most things break you can replace them to keep from throwing everything else out...within some period of time usually 5-6 years would be a good "hope" for things like motherboards, cpu if you're right on the cutting edge. 1-3 if you buy them later in their life cycle.

So, maybe instead of a blok style phone, they need a design where shops could essentially build you a phone around a core module for each phone carrier. Then you wouldn't have 8 bazillion phones being manufactured each year and being tossed. You'd have 20 bazillion parts that could be used as needed within a few years to fit someone's needs/wants.

But, it won't happen. And they'll say it's because they are keeping costs down by doing it how they do it now....you know...not because it helps maintain bigger profit margins or anything.........never.

Google Project Ara - Modular Smartphone Prototype has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash on that post.