This is a wonderful example of why you shouldn't shoot down concepts. When that designer unveiled his idea for Phonebloks, the majority of the feedback was criticism about how it wasn't technically feasible, how the designer was being unrealistic and downright naive for not understanding the mechanics [1].

But that's what concept design is about. You create what you envision to be a progressive solution, and find ways to make it technologically feasible. You would think that after all of the stories of Jobs demanding devices be smaller, sleeker, thinner, more responsive, being told it'd be near impossible to do, and seeing him actually pull it off, that people would be a bit more open to new design solutions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6385105

Still think this makes no sense at all, though I'm happy to be proved wrong. I think the endgame for personal devices is making the electronics invisibly small, which requires more integration, not less.

I am down right impressed. The concept is questionable in current practicality but I think it matters for something that they are trying. We can all agree a pc-comptaible like situation would be very cool.

As a matter of good faith I shall withhold my scepticism and wait until they show concrete details.

I can't wait to support hardware that people can change on the fly.

"Tell me in order what modules you have installed" "Take your phone apart and reseat everything" "Did you try blowing on the connectors" "When it dropped and split into a dozen pieces did you put them all together correctly"

Sorry, but this will never see the light of day.

The main difference I see from Ara to Phonebloks is the "chassi". While Phonebloks enable different sized components, Ara seems to limit each component to its own preset size.

I wonder what would happen if you need a bigger "slot" for your block or if the "slot" is too big.

Anyways, it's dream come true. If actually comes to market, will be utopic.

Well, alrighty then... If this becomes a real thing and isn't obsolete 6 months after release, I'll take back all those negative things I said about phonebloks.

I would actually buy this. I'd love to be able to swap components out, upgrade my camera from vanilla without it costing the earth, give myself two batteries, upgrade with some more RAM or storage just because...

Maybe it's because I have used an iPhone for years, and I've just been missing out on Android configurability, but being able to potentially hack together new hardware that I can just attach to my phone... dude... that is awesome.

EDIT: yes, I read the previous thread about Phonebloks too. I was suitably deflated by all the "this is unrealistic" comments. I am now re-excited :)

Wow! This is awesome. Might be a revolution coming. The first thought I had was - IBM PC. This could be just that for the mobile market.

Motorola's announcement: http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/goodbye-sticky-h...

HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6634527

I wonder how long until the Ara hardware DRM keys and gamification of Ara modules begin.

And how long until some virus engages the hardware locks on the modules and forces you to pay a fine to upgrade your phone ("Vendor" lock in).

Or, on the contrary, when Ara modules start sliding out of their positions, crashing the phone, corrupting pictures, etc.; causing Motorola (or whoever) to build in locks.

Or software that doesn't rely on hardware, but refuses to run when you don't have modules x, y, and z; or refuses to run when you DO have modules a, b, and c.

Motorola's announcement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6632860

I would like to see us get this kind of compatibility (back) for laptops... Seems a lot more useful and feasible.

Looking closely at the top photo it looks like they have differently shaped Exo's as well. One appears to be much wider, where the other is more iPhone 5 shaped.

It'd be really neat to able to swap in zoom lenses when you might need them.

i think its awesome, but it only makes androids fragmentation problem worse.

It should feel like a lego phone, I can already envision myself stepping on a block.

It might take a few attempts from a few different companies but this is the way smartphones are going to go. We've needed modularity in these tiny computers we carry around for a long time now. The cries of "more battery" for example are just a symptom of modularity deficiency. I am fully behind this project.

You think fragmentation is bad now?