(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an SRE at Google.)
> It's not that "many" of the components aren't available, it's all the components anyone cared about. It seems like you won't be able to swap out the CPU, GPU, RAM, battery or screen.
The article addresses this directly:
"After lots of research and testing, they made a big decision: rather than turn every single piece of the phone into modules, from the processor to the RAM to the hard drive, they’d consolidate all that into the standard frame. They found that people don't care about, or want to think about, the processor in their phone. And they especially don't want to worry about it being compatible with all their apps. Users just want a good phone with good specs that does all the basics well, and then they want a place to play on top of that."
They did the research. It turned out that people didn't care about those components after all.
If you think your research is better, build the product.
Did the research ask how many people wanted to carry around a bag/box of spare modules they might need during the day, or how big the bag/box would need to be?
>If you think your research is better, build the product.
Or not.
I'm all for experimentation, but hardware is always tricky, and the original idea - open source hardware - has always been problematic.
It looks like the cost of module development is going to be way outside the budget of individuals, security is going to be an issue, and unless the platform builds a big ecosystem very quickly - possible, but unlikely - there's going to be little incentive for companies to join up.
ARA makes perfect sense as a concept phone for hardware research, but I'm less convinced it can ever be a viable popular commercial product.
> If you think your research is better, build the product.
I've been saying since the announcement of Ara (and even earlier with that Phonebloks Kickstarter) that it will not work.
So if you'd like to put it that way... I guess my research was better. Also, I have not built a modular phone, but neither has Google. Since I didn't spend 2 years not building the phone, I guess my non-existent product is better too.
I find it entirely reasonable that research shows consumers don't want products that don't work very well. The text I quoted explicitly called out that it would be a software compatibility nightmare.
Sure, I can find that section of the article for you:
"Which brings us to the most important question still facing Project Ara: what the hell kind of modules are people going to build? Woolridge and his team took their user research to the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona in February, where they started showing it to potential partners: carriers, tech companies, fashion brands, everyone.
Turns out they all have ideas. Better speakers, flashlights, panic buttons, fitness trackers, projectors, app-shortcut buttons, kickstands, a million other things. Some are incredibly high-tech—pro-level cameras clearly fascinate the Ara team, and they all get excited at the idea of replacing my hideous tape recorder with a microphone module—but some aren’t. Bertrand shows me a small compact case for storing makeup, and a small hollow pillbox. They’re also building “style” modules, which don’t do anything except look nice. Apparently, when given the opportunity to make anything that plugs into their phone, people come up with some pretty useless ideas."
> It's not that "many" of the components aren't available, it's all the components anyone cared about. It seems like you won't be able to swap out the CPU, GPU, RAM, battery or screen.
The article addresses this directly:
"After lots of research and testing, they made a big decision: rather than turn every single piece of the phone into modules, from the processor to the RAM to the hard drive, they’d consolidate all that into the standard frame. They found that people don't care about, or want to think about, the processor in their phone. And they especially don't want to worry about it being compatible with all their apps. Users just want a good phone with good specs that does all the basics well, and then they want a place to play on top of that."
They did the research. It turned out that people didn't care about those components after all.
If you think your research is better, build the product.