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Motorola's "Project Ara" Will Allow Users To Customize Their Smartphones
rtoz writes "Motorola has announced 'Project Ara,' afree and open hardware platform for smartphones. The purpose of Project Ara is to create a modular smartphone that would allow users to swap hardware components according their own wish. The design for Project Ara consists of an endoskeleton (endo) and modules. The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter — or something not yet thought of." Motorola's not the first one to think of such a thing; this project is in cooperation with Phonebloks, which had already been pushing for reusable, reconfigurable phone components.
This is excellent. At my company we are not allowed to have phones with cameras, so now I am juggling my private smartphone and a kick-ass Nokia 101 which I take to my desk.
If I could build a smartphone with a decent touchscreen, no camera, and dual sim capabilities I'd be really happy.
Don't hold your breath, this is not going to happen. There is little profit margin in selling components like this, why would the phone manufacturers get into low-margin business and abandon their high-profit business? Selling replaceable components means that users are going to hold on to their longer, and replace it less. Where's the profit in that the manufacturers? Their job is to dump a new phone model on the market every 3 months, rinse and repeat.
You could buy computers with backs that opened
Um.. nothing has changed dude. You still can. Perhaps you've been in the Apple monoculture too long.
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