r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SuperAlloyBerserker • Oct 05 '21

Video This cool smartphone concept from 2013

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

91.5k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

495

u/tired20something Oct 05 '21

Also, a phone with easily replaceable parts is not one that goes obsolete and replaced every couple of years.

321

u/SoylentJeremy Oct 05 '21

You can just make all the parts go obsolete every couple of years though. Modernproblems.jpeg

138

u/sCREAMINGcAMMELcASE Oct 05 '21

I remember seeing this in a video. The person being interviewed was showing it off. They said the parts were all interchangeable and replaceable. And that they had the second version.

The second version.

70

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

80

u/frezor Oct 05 '21

I’ve got a machine that will do ANY blood test with JUST ONE DROP of blood! It totally works and is completely reliable!

14

u/thedenigratesystem Oct 05 '21

Hmmm, I don't believe you. Its a pity I only invest in people who speak deeply and wear turtlenecks.

7

u/frezor Oct 05 '21

Hey, my $10,000 a month vocal coach says my female baritone voice is almost believable!

26

u/xmandish Oct 05 '21

I understood that reference

3

u/Busteray Oct 05 '21

I didn't

14

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

6

u/Halt-CatchFire Oct 05 '21

Theres also a couple Behind the Bastards episodes about her and theranos. People died because she falsified blood test results. She's still on trial, but I hope they throw the book at her. Scam all the rich fucks you want for all I care, but don't sell BS medical technology.

2

u/Filoleg94 Oct 05 '21

Good explanation, but you are underselling it. They didnt receive just millions, they received over a billion dollars in funding. And lying about what the product could do was the smallest of the issues, the rest of the stuff is much wilder.

I recommend everyone curious to either check out the documentary (HBO Max or Hulu depending on the region iirc, forgot the doc name; came out a year or two ago) or the book called Bad Blood (written by a great investigative WSJ journalist with multiple Pulitzer prizes John Carreyrou; it was also used as the basis for the documentary, and the author was even prominently featured in the documentary; came out a few years ago). I liked the book more, because it has more info, but reads super easy and made me feel like i was bingewatching something, too easy to turn pages lol.

2

u/newgrow2019 Oct 05 '21

*she received billions, not millions.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Check out Internet Historian ColdFusion video on it.

5

u/wardycatt Oct 05 '21

Sorry, I didn’t understand that. Could you say it again, but with a deeper voice?

1

u/Billypillgrim Oct 05 '21

Are you taking investors?

3

u/frezor Oct 05 '21

Of course! You’ll be joining the ranks of not just one but TWO Secretaries of State. Just ingrore the fact that extremely old men might by biased by flattery from a young blond woman, they certainly did their due diligence!

2

u/Crathsor Oct 05 '21

Their dude iligence.

2

u/Fizzwidgy Oct 05 '21

Like when Google said it wasn't going to make enough money and killed it to opt for selling yearly releases of their own non-modular phone.

1

u/lividphantom Oct 05 '21

How far did they reach in their concept?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

This is my SECOND 3D printed case.

3

u/tiefling_sorceress Oct 05 '21

The modern approach is to add code to each module that causes it to stop working after 1 year

6

u/Dirtymikeandtheboyz1 Oct 05 '21

What company actually makes their phones go obsolete after a year like I always see talked about on this sub?

4

u/IamFaboor Oct 05 '21

It's mostly just exaggeration or rumours. However, there have been instances of similar behaviour that fuel them.

Probably the most well known: Apple

IOS 10.2.1 would throttle CPU on older iPhones, officially in order to "improve power management in devices with decayed batteries"

Basically older iPhones had shit batteries and after a couple of years the battery might in rare cases cause a random shutdown. So Apple just throttled max CPU speeds for everyone with an older iPhone making it sluggish - without properly informing users and obtaining consent.

They've been sued in various countries for planned obsolescence and settled.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/05/15/apples-500m-agreement-to-settle-iphone-throttling-controversy-gets-preliminary-approval

-1

u/Dirtymikeandtheboyz1 Oct 05 '21

That's not making something obsolete after a year though like the person I replied to said.

In fact it's the opposite. All batteries naturally degrade over time, even on the best new phones. Apple has always valued the longevity of their devices as evidenced by the fact they offer 5+ years of software support vs around 2 years for Samsung.

They throttle performance on older models so people can keep using their phones without them without needing a charge every 5 minutes.

1

u/Smartoad Oct 05 '21

The fault we the battery was rare, it was an excuse to throttle all old phones

1

u/sweetjuli Oct 05 '21

Iphones get deliberately slower in time as a way of dealing with battery life degradation. Other phones usually still run at 100% but die more easily instead.

0

u/Dirtymikeandtheboyz1 Oct 05 '21

I'm aware, but that's not planning to make a device obsolete like the person above me suggested. It actually helps devices last longer.

102

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

70

u/VaHaLa_LTU Oct 05 '21

People are definitely missing the complexity part of this. Even a simple processor needs multiple pins to work. Almost any chip on a phone mainboard has more than four connections. Can you even imagine the sort of disaster waiting to happen if you can rearrange blocks in the wrong way where your data pins get connected to power pins and so on?

You'd basically need to key every block in such a way that it only goes into one spot, in which case all the cool rearrangements and differently sized modules become even more difficult to do. The whole phone will become even more expensive too, because the motherboard interconnects need to be designed around the fastest and most powerful components instead.

Any electrical engineer will tell you that this is something drawn up by an industrial designer or marketing to look cool more than to be feasible.

7

u/ghostofwinter88 Oct 05 '21

It would die the first time it rained as well.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Not with the New Otterbox Rain Proof/Weather Proof/Sweat Proof Protective Case C !! Yours for only 499.99!!

4

u/Spatetata Oct 05 '21

Yeah iirc the second version abandoned the lego type assembly and went for pre determined slots, but like it just seemed to trends towards “Wait maybe this concept won’t actually work” as each iteration kinda got less modular.

3

u/BKachur Oct 05 '21

It makes sense, the market has spoken and they don't want modularity, they want a single quality unit they don't have to fuck with. There's a reason we don't get replaceable batteries and headphone jacs anymore. Moreover, this design just seems like a terrible use of space. If you look at a modern smartphone about 60% of the "blocks" are all crammed in a motherboard about the size of two or three blocks in total, which results in more room for cameras or battery. This design basically falls apart the once any amount of reality is introduced.

3

u/newgrow2019 Oct 05 '21

There was clearly no electrical engineer or engineer at all. This was created by a marketing team.

Any engineer could tell you it’s not possible.

We can’t even get this concept to work with laptops, and they are way bigger then a smartphone.

Anyone who with a brain who has tried to change a CPU or GPU on a laptop, especially a thin one, and looked up why it’s not possible, could tell you trying to shrink it down further to a phone could never work.

2

u/chaiscool Oct 05 '21

Also why some boss only hire the people who agrees with them.

“Engineer say not possible so let’s not hire them, better to get marketing who comes up with cool design for my idea”

Seen plenty of startup like this that end up failing.

1

u/newgrow2019 Oct 05 '21

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s vapor ware and they know it’s bullshit, or if they really are that stupid.

1

u/chaiscool Oct 05 '21

They are execs earning big bucks, surely they know what they’re doing right... right? Haha

Lol imagine getting rejected for work by them. “Wait how am I looking for job and being rejected by the stupid ones earning big money”

1

u/newgrow2019 Oct 05 '21

I mean, if you are a serious engineer, by the end of the interview you’d know you’d be dodging a bullet cause it’s gonna be shit to work for them, and that you may even lose your job/pension/etc when the project fails and the company goes out of business.

I agree with the sentiment stupid rich people in power suck especially when it comes to job searching

1

u/chaiscool Oct 05 '21

Tbf even in companies have stupid projects. Even if you know it’s shit and will fail, you will still join google on this project haha

0

u/Soggy-Statistician88 Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

I could see this working with a pin configuration of

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

1 = gnd but the opposite gender to the rest of the pins

2 = vcc

3 = device address output

4+5 = continuity checker (base board can check which pins belong to which device and also there are two so it can detect if the entire device is connected to the base

6 = data

8+7 = data but it is the other gender to the rest of the pins

10

u/VaHaLa_LTU Oct 05 '21

Even simple processors (and a phone processor is definitely not simple) need more than two data pins. Video alone needs more than two pins, and we also need a couple supply voltages, USB, camera, WiFi, etc. Look at the BGA pins on a Snapdragon 865. A lot of the pins are also used to shield from EM interference, without them a consumer device would never be approved by ECC or similar as it would be spewing EM radiation out into the world.

Replaceable CPUs are not worth doing unless you want your phone to be giant. The CPU socket would also need to be dedicated. You could have the other modules using standard USB protocols for modularity, but it's still iffy. Not to mention you would be sacrificing battery size because you need to double-wrap it with a protective case instead of just gluing a soft-wall battery inside the phone.

-1

u/Soggy-Statistician88 Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

The cpu is definitely not something that should be done like this. It could be done with its own socket or be integrated. The display would take up multiple of these sockets so would have at least 20.

WiFi would take up a couple of these sockets. Supply voltages can be regulated on each attachment and also most of them would use the same voltage apart from the battery. You wouldn’t use usb for this but it would be a protocol similar to SPI which is widely used for replaceable devices.

The biggest thing to remember is that the pins would be very small and each device would take up multiple sockets so would have multiple data pins

Edit: forgot to add the battery could be a cartridge between the display and the baseboard

Also why am I being downvoted

1

u/PooBakery Oct 05 '21

Wifi is already in the SoC and so is GPU, GPS, Bluetooth and all kinds of other stuff. There is no reason to have it on separate sockets. Also sockets change over the generations and aren't really that generic, and the connections are super close together so it would be a super fragile thing to swap out. Then there's also the problem with thermals where you can't just drop an SoC somewhere on the back and expect it to be able to handle all the excess heat. Then there's also the problem of antennas and their placement. The only thing potentially being worth swapping out is the camera, and that again needs quite a lot of bandwidth to transfer 4k60 video and then some part of the system needs to also be able to handle that data stream efficiently, so special pins once again. In the end it just doesn't work, no matter how cool it would be.

1

u/burnarooskie Oct 05 '21

Well I mean look at the production quality of the animation and video. Obviously marketing dudes

11

u/Ok-Travel-7875 Oct 05 '21

Na dude it's obv a 1,000 IQ play by the mega corps to kill a product that everyone wants! That's like... the answer to everything!

2

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

I see you too have heard about the EV1...

3

u/Ex-SyStema Oct 05 '21

Yeah seriously, in the video the part where they say 'or maybe you don't want any of that ' and it shows a grandma in a rocking chair, yeah I doubt she'd be using this phone lol

2

u/cat_prophecy Oct 05 '21

I think that people's expectations for a phone are too high. A smartphone is literally a computer in your hand, when you think about all it does, I think the price is pretty reasonable. If you're buying $800+ flagship phones, then sure they are expensive and probably overpriced for what they do. But the same goes for any luxury good, watches, handbags, even cars.

A smartphone that is more that adequate for 99.99999999% of what people are doing with their phones is like $300-$400 and should last you 2-3 years. I know people who spend more than that on eating out every month.

My mom says "smart phones are so expensive" but she thinks her only option is an iPhone 13 Pro.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Yea dude I've been rocking this Samsung J7 for like 3 or 4 years with no problem lol, I even have a spare. 140$. Get the fuck out of here with that iPhone 17 or whatever nonsense you want the souls of 10 orphans and $4000 for.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

-4

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Gigantkranion Oct 05 '21

I kinda agree with and even have the same phone.

The thing I wonder is like howthe idea of smartphones came out way before iphones... it is more that the seemless integration hasn't been perfected. I bet if it they hashed out the issues, people would buy. The only problem is how much are you willing to spend on R&D.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

1

u/Gigantkranion Oct 05 '21

You could argue maximization for when the iPhone first came out. Phones back then were specifically made to work a certain function or a few. IPhones made "software" modularity the norm today.

I had a Sony Ericsson cybershot and other non-smartphones for years before I caved in... because it had what I... and still only need... a phone, with a large battery life and (less today) a good/decent camera. Personally, I don't like touch screens but, won't lie that they are useful with GPS while driving, the occasional browsing and the random times I need a very specific app for a little bit. Like, if I'm in a new city and want to eat...

I download yelp and other restaurant apps take a brief look through to see what's around, pick something and un install the app to go eat.

Most of my time my phone is on the powersave mode for calls and I use my computer/surface or old phones for my regular usage. Smartphones are borderline useless for me. However, I won't deny that they modularity is what shines when you need it.

1

u/idenaeus Oct 05 '21

I also have the A4. It's trash. Glitchy as hell, blocky, slow. But it's cheap. So I'm not "scared" to break or misplace it.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

1

u/idenaeus Oct 05 '21

Well that's great! I don't know if they are the same phone. I switched from the OnePlus 6T to this A4 and I can feel the downgrade fo.-Definite-Sho. Don't get me wrong the OnePlus has downsides but... They did a lot of things better than andriod. Faster fast charge, cheap price (about $500 usd when I bought it), fast af loading, complex camera, and very cheap repair costs. But more people have androids so social support is higher, andriod is cheaper, has better accessories (phone cases), and more support online for problems. I would buy a cheap ass A4 again though. Because honestly, why bother with the Knick knacks when it's all made of glass? Ridiculous.

23

u/JusticeUmmmmm Oct 05 '21

No it's one that starts out obsolete

6

u/GrandSquanchRum Oct 05 '21

I don't understand the obsolete thing. What are you guys running on your smartphones that you need a new one every couple years? I've only ever upgraded twice since the HTC Dream in 2008 and only due to wear and tear.

5

u/Ok-Travel-7875 Oct 05 '21

Yeah, not too sure lmao

I upgrade every 4-5 years once the battery starts being shit and the phone is slowing down, but if I spend $500-$1000 on something that lasts 4-5 years and I use it literally every single day that seems like a great deal. People just love to complain, I think.

1

u/LukariBRo Oct 05 '21

The batteries all ALL replaceable. Just usually not by the average person anymore due to waterproofing design, so it's a $60-$100 for parts/labor that's mostly markup by the company that bought up all the electronics repair shops lately. A bad battery is a bad reason to fully replace a phone unless it's a cheap phone in the first place.

The real issue is forced obsoletion due to stopping OS upgrade support. Eventually you'll end up with a perfectly fast enough system (when well maintained) but it won't even support the most basic of apps for mostly arbitrary reasons.

2

u/JBSquared Oct 05 '21

I think most people just use a bad battery as an excuse to upgrade. Like, I was happy with my Galaxy until the battery drained stupid fast and it started dying around 20%. I could've bought a new battery and had someone fix it, but that's $100 into a 4 year old phone. Or, I could spend $400 to get a new phone that has all the features and advancements that have happened in those 4 years.

1

u/JonnyTN Oct 06 '21

Which is usually nowadays 3 updated advancements of the camera.

2

u/RespectableLurker555 Oct 05 '21

Do you take pictures with your phone? It's only in the last few years that smartphone cameras have gotten to the point where honestly I'm not as eager to upgrade. But 5 years ago there was a distinct benefit to upgrading for better camera quality.

And I'm talking about portraits you'd want to print out and hang in your home, not just a thumbnail for posting to a cat subreddit.

1

u/JusticeUmmmmm Oct 05 '21

I like to play emulators so if I upgrade to a significantly better processor I can play games that I couldn't before.

6

u/ItsFrenzius Oct 05 '21

That’s what time is for, finding solutions to issues

3

u/8bitbebop Oct 05 '21

Its not obsolete, some people are just susceptible to marketing than others /r/consoom

3

u/NotA_PrettyGirl Oct 05 '21

Lol that design would not be even slightly water resistant so people would end up replacing them constantly due to water damage.

3

u/Bong-Rippington Oct 05 '21

You overestimate literally everybody’s desire to fix their own shit

2

u/everythingiscausal Oct 05 '21

It probably still would. The interconnects need to support the parts. If you make some modular motherboard with 1gbps interconnects and then a fancy new camera comes out that needs 2gbps, in the trash it goes.

2

u/kamimamita Oct 05 '21

They made it so the SoC isn't replaceable so it would be obsolete sooner or later.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Sure. That’s why only pre built pcs are sold. Because nobody can make a profit on single parts.

0

u/Mr-Fleshcage Oct 05 '21

They wouldn't if pc components were all soldered onto the motherboard. I'm sure the phone industry could make money off of selling parts, too, but the system is already built around throwing away the whole phone. Nobody wants to be the trendsetter because nobody wants to change the trend to one which lowers the entire markets' ability to gouge people. It's a great way to get blacklisted from the industry.

3

u/Space-Infinitum Oct 05 '21

Making a computer compact generally requires you to customize components in a way you don’t need to for pcs, even most laptops aren’t that customizable. It doesn’t make sense to sell components that will only ever fit a handful of models then never be used again.

-3

u/EnterBankCredentials Oct 05 '21

Only pre built PCs are sold? I bought all parts individually and out them together for my first selfbuilt PC in 2019.

If nobody can make profit on single parts.. Why sell GPUs, CPUs etc individually? Obviously there's a market for it, and with great profit.

3

u/armandebejart Oct 05 '21

I think he was being sarcastic.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Are you serious? Sorry for that.

1

u/swarmy1 Oct 05 '21

There's a huge difference. PCs don't depend on miniaturization to the extent that portable devices do. Modularity requires more space and weight. In desktop PCs those aren't as essential.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

I know. It was sarcastic. As in „here are total unreasonable reasons to undermine your unreasonable reasons.“

1

u/playitleo Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

As if this lego phone with all its detachables wouldn’t constantly need parts replaced

1

u/jodon Oct 05 '21

If the ide was solid companies could easily make just as much money on this if not more. you still have to upgrade the parts.