The Ara body contains a fixed CPU, GPU, antennas, sensors, battery, and display...

> The Ara body contains a fixed CPU, GPU, antennas, sensors, battery, and display. The Ara page says this "frees up more room for hardware in each module,"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA OH MY GOD WAIT THEY ARE NOT JOKING AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Other urls found in this thread:

theverge.com/google/2016/5/20/11723508/google-project-ara-modular-phone-photos-io-2016
youtube.com/watch?v=aWW5mQadZAY
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>smart
>phone

I guess the industry didn't like the idea of upgradeable phones ;)

>all the shit that should be modular isn't
Jesus Christ, I'm sure some suckers will still throw their money away on this gutter trash.

Moot should do something useful and burn down this department.

litearlly no point to buy it if I can't upgrade SoC, or display or whatever.

Its not a modular phone, its a phone with gimmicks you can slap on the front to add slightly more storage or a shitty camera. wooo

DOA

yeah+it is so ugly that it looks home-made
Desktop-Windows
Phone-Iphone
Tablet-Android
Server-Linux
that is how to roll

THEY
FUCKED
UP

It's over, guys

ARA isn't targeted at developers or Sup Forumsfags or people with custom roms or Xposed installed, because making an actually-modular system is too fucking hard for the worlds most valuable company

instead it's gonna be for the special snowflake school kids who want to show off their hurr durr custom phone with pretty colored novelty peripherals, who don't know what an SD card is and therefore will pay $$$ for a snap-in "storage module" that's just SD card mated to a shitty connector in a plastic square case three times its size

>because making an actually-modular system is too fucking hard for the worlds most valuable company
Its not hard at all for a company of this size, is just not profitable to sell something in cheaper parts when you can just charge for an entire phone as soon as the technology deprecates.

It sounds like they originally intended on having a modular phone until they found out how much money it would cost to produce then decided to reinvent it as something else to recoup development costs.

>It sounds like they originally intended on having a modular phone until they found out how much money it would cost to produce then decided to reinvent it as something else to recoup development costs.
It sounds like manufacturers threatened them.

>the ara body contains a fixed gpu & cpu
Why bother?

>the most vulnerable part of a smartphone (screen) isn't replaceable
Lel

Is it Reddit that wanted this? I wonder where this idiotic idea came from. Phones freaking going to pieces in your pocket.

The CPU, GPU and ram would have to be together anyways. A seperate display and battery would be nice. The sensors and antenna makes sense to be in the body. If they seperate the cpu and the battery wouldnt that mean you'd permanently lose 2 spots?

So... what is that is modular? Camera and...?

And crazy wacky gadgets you can add! the possibilities are endless! as long as you buy a new one every year that is.

I think what they mean is there's some base parts built in so you can run it without modules. But if you want to add more battery, processing power etc you can.

>modular phone except for the parts that you would need to be modular
It honestly looks like Google is setting this up to fail so they don't have to entertain cries of "why can't I do X to the hardware?" in the future.

I read an article where they said essentially that its viewed not as a way for tweakers to customize their phone, but as a method for upselling you. Except for a few top-end Nexys and Galaxy devices, Android phones are now a commodity product with thin margins, and the industry views Ara as a way to extract money from sales of modules and accessories, and fuck the technical stuff.

>no modular battery
flop

>... the botnet chip

so what exactly do you put in the modules if all the main parts are accounted for in the main body?

A bottle opener?
A pez dispenser?

some of the modules are literally just "cosmetic"

Ara ara ~ Don't you want a thick phone like me, user-kun? ~

So they invented dual cpu/gpu in phones?

It could just switch to the other processor. I highly doubt they wouldn't at least let you add battery.

So you would add a second processor and not use the other one?

If I didn't already have a modular phone I would buy it and put an extra battery in every slot.

I think the built in processor will be shitty just so it stays on while you switch modules. I remember them saying this previously.

You can add additional antenna, sensors and batteries but it comes with baseline ones.
Fixed CPU, GPU and screen sucks but perhaps you can add a switchable GPU chip like some laptops have. I figure you can add additional RAM also.

absolute madmen

A few things:

1) You can swap the battery out easily (even when it's on, read the news), but you can't add battery into the modules

2) Think about it, how the would you ever accomplish battery to the modules? The connections are for data, not power. You'd have to add connections for transfer power for every module, even when you don't need it and it's just for battery.

3) They should have combined CPU/GPU/RAM into a swappable module. It's understandable not to have one module for CPU, one module for GPU, etc, that would be difficult for compatibility reasons.

4) The screen should have been swappable, no excuses

5) Antenna and sensors integrated into the frame is okay, but would have been better if in a separate module

6) Don't always think workers can do anything. They're limited on time, funding, etc and sometimes you just want to get the product out or your initial ideas are far more difficult than you imagined such that you have to make compromises. Anyone that worked on projects have encountered this, not that anyone here knows.

these are essential pieces of hardware if the modules are hot-swappable, no? this is only going to be useful for normies, after all. normies will buy the Ara 2, Ara 2+, Ara 3, Ara 4K, and so on anyways to get the better parts that aren't interchangeable

In the video a dude literally eats a tictac from inside a module.

>Looking forward to Ara so I can debotnet (remove sensors, antennas/radios, cameras) my phone when I'm doing tinfoil things
>maybe I could even upgrade my RAM
>everything important is crammed in the body
Google is dead to me.

>Think about it, how the would you ever accomplish battery to the modules? The connections are for data, not power.

The connections have power as well, how do you think the modules are powered?

You're comparing power from powering components to battery power. Different amount of power.

>how the would you ever accomplish battery to the modules
it's not impossible to have controllers that decide if a line transfers power or data and switch between the two. it's just that it probably wouldn't come to something like this kind of phone until after a couple generations of models. i can see it in the future desu

kill yourselves phone faggots

What exactly is upgradeable on these things?

>additional antenna
Nope
(Because FCC)

>tfw wanted ara so i could have 16GiB of RAM

even wifi adapters have removable antennas

The battery is modular.

theverge.com/google/2016/5/20/11723508/google-project-ara-modular-phone-photos-io-2016
>The battery on this prototype is hot swappable, too. Yup! Caramago opened up the bottom, pulled out the battery, and there was enough juice in the frame to just keep the phone running. It probably wouldn't last very long, but definitely long enough to put in a fresh battery, all without rebooting.

>but you can't add battery into the modules
Source? That's another disappointment, if true.

Point #2 already addressed by >3) They should have combined CPU/GPU/RAM into a swappable module. It's understandable not to have one module for CPU, one module for GPU, etc, that would be difficult for compatibility reasons.
>4) The screen should have been swappable, no excuses
Agreed.

>5) Antenna and sensors integrated into the frame is okay, but would have been better if in a separate module
Mostly agreed, except antenna swapping would've been one of the bigger selling points, e.g. for travel, or when carriers adjust their frequencies.

This.

There was an interview with the lead designer guy (whatever his name is) and they're market studies showed an overwhelmingly large percentage of consumers didn't care for CPU, ram or anything related on a mobile, they simply wanted something modular that can browse the internet, run all the latest "apps" and do all "smart phone things".

No source, just what I think. I think you'd need a another connection just for the high power transfer, which is different from regular powering component transfer.

>they simply wanted something modular

what fucking things did they want modular then?

>contains a fixed CPU, GPU
Biggest fucking meme of a decade.

More room for what? 15 cameras and fingerprint collectors? What else can you slap there that actually matters?

Storage. Maybe a DAC. Full sized ports would be nice.

underrated post

On release it will have high specs, but they will make some serious money on overpriced modules

Literally a stupid meme phone that I'm sure many people will just eat up

Ara~

yeah, the modules arent passive, they obviously require power. Why couldnt you add extra batteries?

I'm guessing there was too much latency. Maybe power consumption and Android issues as well.

see

>Source? That's another disappointment, if true.
"swap in a better battery"
source:
the fucking video description
youtube.com/watch?v=aWW5mQadZAY

>I'm guessing there was too much latency. Maybe power consumption and Android issues as well.

So let's just give up. Instead of making a truly revolutionary technology, let's just give up. It costs too much to figure out.

For fuck's sake. I actually was looking forward to Ara expressly because I could upgrade any component. Instead of human-kind filling landfills with one to two year old cell phones all the time we could be upgrading the relevant component modules and recycling the old ones.

Seriously. Processor feeling a bit long in the tooth? Upgrade to a newer one. Need more RAM? New RAM module. Need more storage? New storage module. Screen cracked? New screen module. Battery capacity dropping? New battery module.

It was a really cool idea. I hope it gets picked up later on. Maybe Ara will be a stepping stone. A proof of concept.

the problem is that a.) most consumers don't want that - they don't want to have to know or care about what components are in their phone. They want to view it as a black-box, no-user-serviceable-components-inside piece of consumer electronics that they just buy, turn on, and use. They don't have the skills to upgrade or repair it themselves, and the cost of the labor to hire someone else to do that generally makes it more economical (and much easier) to just toss it and buy a new one when needed.
And b.) manufacturers don't want to cater to the small segment of the market that's tech-savvy and wants a modular phone. They want to sell to the very widest possible market, to maximize both revenue and economies of scale in manufacturing. Also they have every interest in planned obsolescence, they want you to buy a new full-price phone, not just a new battery module.
It's probably worth noting that they likely see the young, tech-savvy male demographic that wants modular geek-o-phones as the least profitable demographic. They care about getting Android updates and will trash you for not providing them, normies don't care. They want rootable phones with an unlocked bootloader, normies don't care. They block ads and remove preinstalled apps that some company paid to have installed, normies don't care. They know how to pirate apps, normies don't. and so on

Let's be honest, they just realized you can't make money off something that doesn't get obsolete or breaks easily. Plus software support requirements would be enormous to support all them chipsets, only Sony ever came close to that with their unified kernel.

See, that's exactly the situation. And the problem.

The general population has been dumbed down to the point where it's perfectly fine and acceptable to be ambivalent and lazy. You don't need to know how it works. It's pretty, it's fast, and you want it. That's it, because we say so. Then, 18 months later (or less, as is becoming the trend), a new one comes out. It's prettier, it's faster, and you want it more than the one you already have. Still don't need to know how it works, but higher numbers are better so it's automatically better.

Absolutely fucking disgusting.

But it makes insane quantities of money. Hence:

...

THE FUTURE

kek

its fucking amazing people thought that literally everything would be removable and people would be able to chose shit like cpu and radios

the people who thought that are fucking braindead

This isn't cringey at all.

It was promised.

We didn't wager jewgle would fuck it up. Making a phone with a removable processor and radios is hard but not impossible. Jewgle only cares about money so of course this didn't happen.

It was doomed from the start anyways to be honest. It was just a novelty thing a few autists like myself would carry around.

>Make condom holder module
>Make millions
You can thank me later.

wasnt it 'promised' in the kickstarter? that makes people who believe it even more fucking retarded.

even with your epic jewgle memes XD you have no idea what you are talking about. you have no idea the shit that would go into something as useless as making that shit removable. if it actually happened everything would be so expensive you dumb shits wouldnt be able to afford it even for a shitty novelty

This

Start preparing your shekels for buying the same parts (overpriced) instead of a new phone.

So you can put a better camera to take selfies or switch to a non-shit battery
Good thing every exec at Google shits money or else they would have to worry about the garbage they put out

You say 'shit' a lot

Kinda goes together with your opinion

>gets called out for being a gullible kickstarter child
>LOL YOU USE SHIT A LOT!

great job

Fucking dropped before I even held it. Sad.

Camera, battery, and that's about all that normies care about.

If you want something portable that you can upgrade GET A LAPTOP

So in otherwords, they removed what made the ara desirable in the first place?

Apparently they found out that if you drop a phone it usually breaks, but in the case of the ara it didn't break but all the modules went flying instead.

>Making a phone with a removable processor and radios is hard but not impossible.
It's pretty close. Not only does it have to be compact enough to compete with other products on the market, but it also has to be durable enough to survive several years being bashed around and stressed in someone's pocket or bag. And then there are the challenges of making some kind of bus fast and small enough to interconnect everything reliably.
And after all that, it has to be the same price as a normal smartphone.

If I had a nickel for every time some smart-aleck made this stupid joke...

See, if you drop a phone anyway there's a pretty good chance you're fucked regardless, so why would it even matter if you had to spend 20 seconds picking up the parts and then turning it back on because it still works?

Using "oh shit stupid people drop their phone" as an excuse to remove what was effectively the primary drawcard from the device means it's dead on arrival to the target audience.

Motorola seem to have managed to make a virtually unbreakable display, so that particular selling point is gone already. Apple, Samsung and all the others will have something similar very shortly.

>normies are afraid to change things
>power users can't change what they wanted all along
And of course it's gonna have some sd6xx soc because HURR only flagships are allowed to have decent hardware. It's gonna flop harder than a whale on a beach.

Normies fucked us again.

It'll be released as another Nexus in a couple of years, giving Google a platform to design and standardise swappable hardware on Android, which some manufacturers are already doing.

>which some manufacturers are already doing.
Yet another way that Google fumbled this project.

By which I mean they squandered their lead, and are now releasing a year behind LG and Motorola.

Nah mate, you're a fucking retard, they could simply fit all soc(CPU, RAM, modem) on one SMALL module(yes, those parts are that small) without breaking any regulations, even bandwidth wouldn't be an issue because the most demanding parts would be interconnected inside. Like a stripped down phone.

>even bandwidth wouldn't be an issue

It would be with a swappable display. That's probably why they abandoned the obvious killer feature of being able to replace a broken screen.

I wonder if they're gonna market it under a different name in japan

HDMI has similar bandwidth, only the latest version are faster, and you'll need 4k to saturate it. Alright, just use a big slot then, it has two connectors.

That means that both the SoC module and the display need to support HDMI and all the physical connectivity to go with it, which needs to be mechanically strong enough to last for years.
Micro HDMI support has been done before, but the increase in bandwidth to support modern resolutions would make it a lot less tolerant of a poor physical connection or electrical interference.

HDMI was just an example, obviously they would use their port. Their port is 11 gigabit, the latest HDMI is 18, one port is more than enough for full HD, two ports would handle 4k.

C O N S U M E R I S M.
Born in 1970 here, it's always been like this.

The display is almost always going to be in use while the phone is being used, so that bandwidth is consumed constantly, and has to contend with (say) a HD camera, so given that competitors are already on QHD displays, that's a minimum of one additional dedicated port, and all the additional physical space it needs, and yet no tolerance of failure. And on top of that, they need a custom chip to interface the display's interconnect to their port.

Nobody buys Android phones in Japan anyway so I doubt they would mind a milf phone.

Ara ara