Modular smartphones - our future

In 2007, the world saw the first iPhone, it was a revolution, since smartphones have evolved without changing its overall essence: improved camera, displays, processors, increased RAM and video card clock speed. In 2010, the manufacturers if and had different ideas, they could not implement them due to the technical backwardness of the industry.

But now that the technology is more or less developed, many manufacturers have begun to seriously develop their unusual projects: this bracelet, which project the image on the hand, it is an interactive 3D-projection, which we first saw in the “Star Wars”, it is a virtual helmet reality, who wanted to have every child; and if before all this is implemented with the help of special effects films, now it all becomes a reality.

A similar trend is associated with the fact that users are bored with various improvements of existing technologies, consumers need more and manufacturers know this. In addition, 15 percent performance increase today are nothing new, and if earlier for people deciding factor scores were in synthetic tests and the number of cores, but now, when there is an 8-core processors, when the synthetic tests results extend to fifty thousand – already it will not surprise anyone.

The most promising development of the mobile industry can be called a modular smartphones. Their essence is this: at the heart of the smartphone is “skeleton”, which is a central nervous system, which integrates all the plug-ins and synchronizes their work, in other words, it’s like a motherboard on computers: you connect the display, processor, camera, and it all begins to work together, in the amount of giving the user a complete unit.

You could even say that mobile devices repeat the fate of his parents, because originally the first computers were delivered without the possibility to replace anything, but then the trend changed. Of course, in the case of mobile phones is not so important, the main thing – the opportunity to call on the other hand, smart phones today have become something more than just a device for making calls, now a full-fledged human assistant, it is difficult to meet people on the street, do not have smartphones, so the tendency to such technologies is quite clear.

On the market today is not so much not just decent, and as such examples of modular smart phones, they can be counted on the fingers. And to understand the essence, a trend that will continue to haunt the industry, let’s look at the most well-known modular smart phones.

Project Ara

This is the most popular modular smartphone from all submitted, moreover, it has already early prototype, which is quite nice feeling stock Android, however, at the presentation of this summer, the company failed to surprise users, since the device is simply stuck on the logo «Android» . However, some progress certainly is – if we previously showed only plastic models, now is a complete device with which you can work; that is the main developers have done: they have created the first truly working prototype. Of course, without funding the project Google has not moved to a space, so a special thanks to the company for what support such projects that develop industry and technology move forward.

Of course, if Google did not see the benefits of this project, about any financing speech and would not be, because the key is to keep world positions, and they are: the integration of its products, services, getting a big share of the market and the greatest profit, and without such Future projects trail is quite difficult to penetrate. We hope that, in addition to the standard features of a replacement processor, camera and so on. E., It will be possible, for example, adding a module full of mechanical watches or second small screen, which will display basic information. Google said at the presentation of the possibility to change the texture of the back of the module, the ability to create their own modular smartphone, that is to change the “skeleton”, at its discretion, and so on. The project gives immense power of your imagination, but it will not be fun for the poor, it seems to us.

Phoneblocks

This is quite an early project, which was inspired by Project Ara, however, now all such projects are inspired by it Ara. Early prototype user has not demonstrated, however, if the company fails to attract enough investors – no matter what good can not count, a key factor in the development of such devices is funding. However, how profitable to invest in this project? Little benefit. There are far more developed Project Ara, and to catch up with him in the development, you need a lot of money, so the project is unlikely to break out the next stage of development.

But it is worth to pay tribute and praise the developers who are really trying to create something interesting, try to get a video of consumers, moreover, he realized that to compete with the Project Ara makes no sense, a little company changed its specificity and is now planning to make modularity not only smartphones but also washing machines, laptops and so on. But – who knows? – May, in fact, the company will be able to show something worthwhile … At best it will buy Google.

ZTE Eco-Mobius

Chinese manufacturers are not asleep. Apparently, ZTE tired reside in the role of catch-up, but in this area the company tried to be on a par with the other giants. While this is only a concept, which the company presented to the public at CES 2014 about a year ago. Unknown fate of the project and to this day, it is a feature of the design, the style, and maybe that’s it. Eco-Mobius can not be called a complete modular design, because you can only replace the battery, processor, video card, camera memory. In turn, in the Project Ara you are given the opportunity to replace absolutely everything, including Wi-Fi and radios.

Summing up, we should not forget that ordinary smart phones will be better modular least the fact that they do not need a “skeleton”, they all assembled into a single device, respectively, a place for hardware parts much more. In the case of modular devices, plenty of space will occupy himself “skeleton”, in the hands of the device will be felt cumbersome. Furthermore, in the prototype Project Ara can be seen that the processor module occupies a lot of space and sticks out much, in other words, the main problem of modular devices is not the fact of plug-ins, and the place that will be missed sorely missed, especially third-party developers that will optimize their processors for the device, including a “green” company, which decided to support the project to its processor Tegra K1.

Modular smartphones - our future