The New and incredible BlockPhone

So i wa looking through facebook and i saw this video:
(Im not sure if this is old news but ive sure never heard of it)

The new BlockPhone

In my opinion, this phone seems incredibly simple and on the website u can make ur own blocks. Its simple to replace the blocks. But the question i still have is what will the cost of those replacement blocks will be?

Article with video if the actual phone

The opposing point of view...



I think this is an absolutely fantastic concept and would love to see something like this happen, but it's very lofty and the video I posted points out a lot of reasons why.

Very cool nonetheless, S&F.

~Namaste

reply to post by SonOfTheLawOfOne


i see what the video is pointing at. i too took that into consideration for a short time after watching the video. I briefly thought the downsides and cons of it. Idk i guess i got a little to carried away thinking about the technology required to carry out this product from paper into reality. Still a cool concept though.

Ill still be alive in 5 years though

This a great idea, reminds me of the vehicles from the 70's & 80's;
Need a heavier transmission - order one
Need a bigger motor - order one
Get another car or truck - take out you old parts & stick them into your new one

The auto industry put an end to that- you get what we decide to put in them & they won't be interchangeable, that's what we get with our phones today.

I think this idea would take off, unfortunately corporations don't think that way - cheap, fast & incompatible parts is what we get.

I saw the idea for this a long time ago and thought it was cool....I forget who but someone bought the initial idea or teamed up with the 2 guys that orginially thought of it....whoever it was had money though if I remember right. I think this could definitely be done but I think you will see few part makers. Think like mac computer vs pc where on a pc 100 different people can make a hard drive etc. I hope this takes off because I rarely use the phone to be a phone/camera. I need an ipod that allows me text messages and the occasional phone call really. This would be perfect. I think itll work out eventually.

forget the phoneblock I want the carblock.

IMO the reason this will not come to fruition anytime soon in the USA is not because of technology but because of existing Oligopoly business models. Telecom providers all ready go out of their way to prevent you from easily switching vendors with carrier phones, I doubt they would be to pleased with this as a consumer option.

Basically for the same reason why consumers can't get equivalent quality online cable subscriptions or pick and choose programming via the internet versus cable providers and their packages. They need to milk you out of every penny first. The telecom is not even close to getting your last penny as a matter of fact they are just getting started after spending 340 Million dollars to overturn net neutrality.

Not even Intel could fight the telecom lobbyist to provide on demand tv and Google and Amazon didn't fair to well with net neutrality.

Basically Telecom tells you what the market is not the consumer and I don't see a big benefit for them with phoneblocks.

SonOfTheLawOfOne
The opposing point of view...

I think this is an absolutely fantastic concept and would love to see something like this happen, but it's very lofty and the video I posted points out a lot of reasons why.

~Namaste

That video should really be titled "Why Phonebloks aren't going to happen before 2020"

When explaining the issues with the idea he uses words like "probably" and "hypothetically" several times. His ram and CPU being on one chip argument is a falsehood, as he claims phonebloks wants to spread them around, when its pretty clear that that's what the "speed block" is.

I feel like that video wasn't made to challenge the idea of phonebloks, but to simply spit in the eyes of everyone who likes the idea. Which is habit that's come of the internet as is practiced readily.

reply to post by eNumbra


That is exactly what I thought when watching that video. Telecom is already putting propaganda out there to encourage the consumers to disregard it or view it negatively.

reply to post by interupt42


Pretty much, total customizable modularity is a technological utopian dream, and is exactly what we should be striving for. The hoops to be jumped through because something on your current phone broke are maddening; but imagine being able to walk down to a Radioshack and simply replace the part yourself.

It threatens the current business model and promises a whole new one. Similar to the video game markets, with the old expansion packs vs new DLC/microtransactions model. Visions of this idea already exist in various forms in Sci-fi media. Components from various manufacturers all interchangable, all with various pros and cons.

Guy has a point, currently, QA testing is unscalable. If however, someone can design the main board and the I/O to that board, thats all chip manufacturers need to begin; it then boils down to no more Q/A than current computer part interaction.

reply to post by golden23


Already Posted

The other thread seems to have tons of info.

That video is very short sighted and doesn't really show any understanding of anything we have around us.

You know? mmmm modular system that if you are unhappy with the speed or the memory, you can upgrade them... mmmm what do you call those?

Oh thats right! a PC

Now, manufacturers are moving towards 'system on a chip' because it is a system that offers modest speed gains and reduces power consumption. That really does not mean that separating the technology is a no no. Many phones these days still have separate ram chips, sometimes it is even SD card interface rather than real ram.

As pointed out already, the concept basically requires a detained specification for the interface and what parts are doing what. Id imagine you basically have the connector block as a dumb controller that talks to everything, but plays no roll other than routing.

I mean come on? suggesting this is impossible or stupid is quite stupid in itself, especially when things like external gpus exist, which interface via thunderbolt, USB3 or firewire.


And cars of the 70s and 80s? They never had interchangeable parts. some of them where probably very basic with basically similar designs for a few major components, meaning a basic swap out was ok but beyond that 'the good old days' where not really anything different to today.

It would be too hard to make a compact smartphone, like those of today, while making it modular. Modern smartphones really push the limits of "packaging", that is, each and every component is essentially integrated together in the smallest possible package both electrically and physically.

Making it modular would allow interchangeability, but since not all components are the same size or have the same electrical characteristics, the system wouldn't be able to be integrated together so tightly and as a result the packaging of the product would suffer. Flexibility for many different combinations would have to be considered instead of just one.

Perhaps it's called a blockphone because it's... blocky?

Actually that brings up a very good point. As you move down to smaller form factors they gradually become less and less upgradable. In desktop PCs it is possible to exchange pretty much any component. PCs are large and consume fair bit of power. Most notebooks allow the hard disk and memory to be exchanged. The more compact notebooks such as Macbook Pro (Retina) and Ultrabooks often do not allow any upgrades. Then comes mobile phones, which are completely locked down.

That video should really be titled "Why Phonebloks aren't going to happen before 2020"

Except market trends tend to point to smaller form factors and tighter integration. Apart from some small amount of customisation like changing the memory size and the camera, I don't see this happening. Then again the consumer electronics industry moves pretty quickly so I'll never say never.

just to be pedantic the new macbook pro with retina can have its flash upgraded Just less choice in the flash due to form factor. Secondly, just to put it out there... how many people in consumer land upgrade ram and hard drives in laptops... typically they don't. Its only the nerds that do

Thirdly A mac with 4 GB of ram for an average user is plenty. 8 if you are despirate, and 16 if you really need it... the ram requirements for OSX is pretty low. But lets not go down those roads.

reply to post by golden23


Lots of technical difficulties with assembling phones via ready-made blocks. Reviews I've read summarized the concept as bulky and impractical, basically defeating the whole purpose of the block assembly approach.

reply to post by ChuckNasty


i didnt even know this was previously posted. i just saw a vid on facebook on it and i thought it was interestong