
USB-C and Modular Smartphones Are the End-Game for Convergence - mmastrac
https://grack.com/blog/2015/01/16/usb-31-ara-are-the-convergence-end-game/
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tlrobinson
Project Ara is a cool idea, but I don't know if it's really practical for a
device that needs to compete on size. A single motherboard with chips soldered
to it will always be thinner than multiple modules which each require their
own case and interconnects between them.

And sure, you might be able to upgrade individual modules, but even the
interconnect will become outdated after a few years.

I'd love to be proven wrong though, it's a cool concept.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Agreed. If we look at PCs I think we can conclude the vast majority of them
were bought, rather than put together with separate parts by consumers. And
that's an extremely modular system. I built all my own computers since I was a
kid and while I've been tech-savvy, I'm very far from a hardcore tech guy
especially when younger. It was just so easy, installing most things is as
easy as plugging a charger in a socket or screwing some bolts in. Yet, while
you could easily save several hundred dollars by doing it and build it to your
liking, a minority of consumers did in the past 15 years.

This notion that we'd all suddenly want to do that for phones seems to me
perhaps a little bit unfounded.

Especially when you consider that there was 0 engineering involved in building
your own custom computer from different parts (unless you took a deep dive
into custom cooling rigs or mini towers). i.e. you generally bought a mid
sized tower and put in your parts. Space was barely a concern and there
weren't any space related tradeoffs.

On mobile devices however, space is everything. Bigger screen? Won't fit in
the pocket, or it'll be too heavy, and it'll draw more power. Bigger battery?
Less space for the CPU or storage, or a camera module.

Not only are companies (with this being their core competency) generally
better equipped to make these decisions, but they're also much better equipped
to minimize the tradeoffs. They can engineer a camera module and a bigger
battery, not just by engineering a better camera/battery module separately,
but by engineering them to fit into a smaller space _together_. All the
soldering-type stuff I like to complain about has, beyond business reasons,
genuine engineering reasons, too.

Add to that the fact that smartphones aren't quite a fashion statement (in the
way that creating a modular smartphone would be like choosing what clothes to
wear), but are in a way a reputational statement (in that people do like thin,
slick looking phones), I don't see how modular phones can really take off,
with few people caring that you can customize them for fashion, and most
people preferring the non-modular phone that's as thin and slick as you can
get, because it's all soldered on and sitting in a unibody.

And none of this is unique. We tend to prefer the completely designed
experience. We don't want to buy separate pieces and construct our own chair
or table or our cars.

Modularity feels like creating pages from different books and turning it into
a story. You don't get the same cohesion. Or going to the golden corral and
ordering pasta, a steak, sushi and pie. It doesn't make a good meal no matter
how good the individual pieces. A properly designed course around a set of
ingredients or a theme is always better, especially when curated by
professionals.

Does that mean we don't want choice or can't handle it? No. I just think that
we find modularity, in a very loose sense of the word, in the product
offering. All the different phone manufacturers ARE the modularisation and
personalisation of the smartphone. Hell Samsung alone has put out 200 phones.

Many vendors do, and quite a few of them experiment. e.g. the phablet was a
big experiment that saw a market demand. We've seen battery powerhouses. We've
seen tiny-bezel phones with a large chin. We've seen phones with an insane
amount of megapixels on the camera, phones built for selfies, phones with a
curved display, phones that integrate with digital covers etc.

So the choice is really there.

In the end I think the flagship products are so well designed that the need
for tradeoffs will diminish. In some ways we're already there. Phones have a
good enough camera for everything except professional work. Phones come with
storage we see on laptops. We've cheapish 'unlimited' data plans. We see
insane resolution screens. We see all day battery life.

In short, when I buy a flagship phone, I don't really think 'damn wish I could
switch out the iPhone camera for more storage, could do it if only my phone
were modular'. Battery is still a big point of improvement for me, a tradeoff,
but that's about it. It feels by the time Ara could pick up steam, the
tradeoffs, like battery, are likely so small (ever more efficient chips,
mostly) we probably won't have a big enough demand for different phone configs
for different times, enough that we're willing to pay extra for the different
extra units, and bear the reduced performance and form factor that a modular
system offers over a single fully designed experience.

At the end of the day phones are becoming able to do everything, and the
personalisation of the phone is all in the software (apps, themes, content),
the choice of phone (again, lots of experimentation and catering to niche
markets by vendors) and things like cases. I don't really see modularity
becoming a big part of that.

That having been said, I love that I've been using my PC for 7 years,
switching components every now and then. It's a pleasure. It'd be awesome to
see how far modular phones could go. It might be one of those things that
somehow just works so well and sticks, even if it's not the best system on
paper, like say tcp/ip. Looking forward to ara going live for consumers this
year.

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ocdtrekkie
I always felt the Atrix and this sort of modular design was the future. Google
killed it heavily with their cloud-synced devices push, and Sundar Pichai
killing Android's laptop development project. I love the idea of Project Ara,
but with Google taking it from Motorola, I fear it's going to be locked down
into proprietary services like Google does with all their products.

If they can get things like processing power to be modular, so you can have
your apps and data on your phone, but be able to plug in and use desktop power
when plugged into a larger station, that'd be when that sort of solution would
really take off. I want everything on my phone, but for that phone to access
desktop level UI and processing capability when I'm at my desk.

~~~
lewisl9029
My ideal mobile device is an x86 phone that can dock into a tablet which can
then dock onto a laptop, which can then dock onto a stationary docking station
with GPU, monitors, storage (I was one of the people who backed the Ubuntu
Edge, such a shame that it didn't make the goal).

I think we're coming very close to making this possible on both the hardware
and the software front. Core M seems only a few generations of optimizations
away from being feasible for smartphones in terms of power consumption (Atom
is already there if performance is not a top priority), and Windows 10 scales
pretty well between tablet and desktop at the moment, and integrating the
Windows Phone functionality into the core OS seems like it could be a
possibility eventually. The power management improvements to Hyper-V in
Windows 10 should make it possible to run other OS's (possibly even Android
eventually) in parallel with very little overhead and power consumption
penalties.

~~~
maxerickson
I would very much like a phone, tablet and laptop that are just different
views into the same computing environment (obviously with accommodations for
the different interfaces), but I don't see any reason why I would want them to
snap together.

It would be sort of handy to be able to borrow larger devices, but plugging in
a cable and having the phone "take over" doesn't have a whole lot of
disadvantages compared to having them snap together.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
In the case of portables like tablets or laptops, it might be preferable for
the phone to snap in for easy carry. But for a desktop a cable or dock would
be more than good enough.

~~~
maxerickson
I'm looking at it from a perspective that using borrowed hardware would be a
rare thing, so instead of snapping the phone into the tablet, 99% of the time
you leave it in your pocket. The hole in the tablet would usually be a hassle,
while cabling a phone to a laptop would only occasionally be a hassle.

Hopefully the technical details of USB3 make it possible to build a smart
cable that makes it possible to plug a phone into an untrusted device (only
allowing the phone to push video and pull power). I guess such a mode could
also be built into the device, but the cable would be a handy place to put a
fuse or whatever. A special cable can also have a very straightforward user
interface, if it can't be configured, it can't be configured incorrectly.

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howeyc
Maybe it's just me, but it looks to me like things have been going the other
"way", all your documents synced to a "cloud" and providing various interfaces
to it (phone/tablet/pc...)

What this looks like is all your data on your phone's hd, and "docking" to
other form factors to compute/play with the data locally. I really hope we go
this route, but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
swalsh
I don't think it's about where your documents are, I think it's more about
where your local CPU is. Your documents will almost certainly be in the cloud.
However then you have two radios, two CPU's, two sticks of RAM. I think the
idea of convergence is merging your phone, your PC, and any other device with
a CPU into one device. The data will still be in the cloud. The benefit is if
you want to write something. A keyboard, and large monitor is better. If you
want a phone, the smaller form factor is better. You want a better camera, you
buy lenses... not a body. etc.

There's no good reason to have a separate CPU in each of these devices. When
you can fit a CPU that's as powerful as a laptop in a phone, why not just have
it in the phone, and only have one computer? Then take the CPU out of the
laptop, and plug in your phone when you need it.

~~~
cwyers
A mid-to-high end ARM SoC is $20 these days, there's really no reason to NOT
have a CPU in anything that has a monitor in it. Especially since the CPU in a
phone has to deal with a power/thermal profile that most laptops have a little
more leeway on. It's such a false economy.

~~~
swalsh
there's so much more then a CPU though. You still need some storage, radios
(bluetooth/wifi/4g), connections for the radios etc.

Plus, if as technology gets better you have to upgrade each device
independently. Wouldn't it be nice if every two years you could upgrade your
phone AND your laptop for the price of one device?

~~~
JetSpiegel
A phone uses about 5W, a laptop 50W and a ultra-high-end desktop 500W. That's
two orders of magnitude of difference, no way the CPU can be the same for all
that.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Exactly this. My ultra-highend desktop at work has a 1200W PSU.

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ChuckMcM
I get the 'vision' here but not sure I buy it yet. I'm still wondering if we
will have a radio brick that you can use with either a 'tablet' type device, a
laptop like device, or a phone like device.

~~~
stevewilhelm
> I'm still wondering if we will have a radio brick that you can use with
> either a 'tablet' type device, a laptop like device, or a phone like device.

Seems like the mobile carriers would be very much against this. They are
currently charging per device.

~~~
derefr
I have a radio brick: [http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-
en/products/mobile_bro...](http://www.alcatelonetouch.com/global-
en/products/mobile_broadband/one_touch_y580.html)

It doesn't _work_ very well, but I think that's mostly A. bad indoor service
on the network band I'm using it on, and B. lack of 4G.

When it does work, though, it basically does the same thing a smartphone does:
serves a wi-fi hotspot, and acts as a 3G modem over USB.

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blendo
The capability for power distribution is really interesting: 2 A at 5 V, 5 A
at 12 V, and 5 A at 20 V.

Assuming some sort of "intelligent" power distribution center, you could plug
your monitor into one port, your cpu/memory/ssd into another, and even digital
audio (DAC and powered speakers) into a third, with only a single AC power
cord needed.

~~~
higherpurpose
Wait, USB-C doesn't let you charge smartphones faster than at 2A? So it won't
be any faster than what you can do right now? Why doesn't it let you charge at
10A? Is it because small batteries can't take so much energy so fast? What's
the deal with those "charge half of your battery in 15 minutes" statements we
see for some of the recent devices?

~~~
lsaferite
Type-C works with USB-PD. USB-PD can negotiate up to 100W of power delivery
via 20V@5A. Increasing the amperage over 5A makes the connection more
dangerous and increases the cabling requirements. If your smart phone or
tablet implement USB-PD and can handle 100W of power then it could charge at
20V@5A VERY quickly.

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CHY872
The Lytro example seems very dubious. Their solution has a lot of additional
hardware in it - you wouldn't be able to package it into a Project Ara type
device without having some kind of backpack anyway. From their point of view,
it'd then be cheaper to also include the CPU, screen etc - a more unified
hardware base to build software for.

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Animats
There are lots of industrial and commercial devices which could be usefully
attached to a smartphone or tablet. Medical diagnostic devices, auto
diagnostic readers, and electronic test equipment could all usefully be
connected. LabView has a smartphone/tablet interface.[1]

None of this is consumer oriented. It's going to be really useful for getting
things done with electronics and in industrial and medical environments, but
home and office, no. The consumer stuff is going the other way. "One tap to
get a ride", says Uber PR.

[1]
[http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/](http://www.ni.com/newsletter/51387/en/)

~~~
maxerickson
There are $25 Bluetooth-OBDII dongles. They aren't necessarily 100% capable,
but they are $25.

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soyiuz
Modular devices make a lot of theoretical sense. Practically, it is almost
impossible to achieve cohesion between large corporate players. Just look at
the power tools market.

Also, I stopped reading after "revolutionary."

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dsg42
Yeah, modular smartphones are definitely not the "End-Game for Convergence."
Just because you think they're cool does not mean they will dominate the
market in the way you want them to.

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stephenmm
I screamed like a little kid when I read this. I was working on UniPro 6 years
ago and thought it was a great idea then. Glad to see it finally coming to
market!

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hengheng
Can USB 3.1 host a GPU? If so, I'm _really_ excited for the next Display
generation.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
Considering ThunderBolt 2 isn't quite up to snuff for PCIe enclosures at
bidirectional of 10 GBps, USB 3.1 isn't going to be enough just on bandwidth
terms.

~~~
hengheng
Not at all. I'm using a GPU via ExpressCard with a single lane. 10 GBit/s is
plenty enough. The question is whether it DMAs correctly, and whether it's
actively disabled by intel again (as with Thunderbolt).

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chrisdotcode
People who are interested in Modular phones can also check out Phoneblok's
website[0], which I believe to be the people who started Project Ara.

[0] [https://phonebloks.com/](https://phonebloks.com/)

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jfernandez
I wonder if Apple will migrate over to USB-C even on iPhones and iPads...

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serve_yay
Were the connectors really what was holding this back? I would be surprised if
it were just that. About the modular phones, super cool idea, but very curious
about its feasibility.

