<story><title>Fairphone 2: world&apos;s first modular phone goes on sale</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34982724</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rsync</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been browsing their (extremely heavy, intensive) website trying to figure out &amp;quot;what are the modules&amp;quot; ... and all I can see is that there is a removable battery and that I could replace&amp;#x2F;repair parts like camera and speaker and so on.&lt;p&gt;But it looks to me that all of the actual functions of the phone are integrated into one big SoC.&lt;p&gt;That misses the entire point of a modular computing device - phone or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;I want a wireless comms module (which contains not just the wifi&amp;#x2F;bt&amp;#x2F;cellular antennas, but the chipset itself) that I can remove or &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt; disable with a switch.&lt;p&gt;I want an inputs module that contains &lt;i&gt;not just&lt;/i&gt; the mic and speaker, but their enabling circuitry so I can remove it or &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt; disable it with a switch.&lt;p&gt;I want a GPS module ... a USB ports module ... a camera module.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what a modular smartphone is all about.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing modular about a big monster (closed, telco-owned, user-hostile) SoC that contains all of the actual functions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Brakenshire</author><text>&amp;gt; That misses the entire point of a modular computing device&lt;p&gt;The point with Fairphone is repairability - their purpose is to lower impact on the environment, and improve the social outcome of the trade along the supply chain. It&amp;#x27;s really the same sort of modularity for repair as the old Thinkpads. It&amp;#x27;s not supposed to be something like Project Ara.&lt;p&gt;This is why, I saw the other week, Fairphone 2 had been given a 10&amp;#x2F;10 score by iFixit:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ifixit.com&amp;#x2F;Teardown&amp;#x2F;Fairphone+2+Teardown&amp;#x2F;52523&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ifixit.com&amp;#x2F;Teardown&amp;#x2F;Fairphone+2+Teardown&amp;#x2F;52523&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And you can see on that page, you can break the phone down into:&lt;p&gt;* Case&lt;p&gt;* Screen&lt;p&gt;* Battery&lt;p&gt;* Main antenna&lt;p&gt;* Headphone jack, earpiece speaker, and front-facing camera module&lt;p&gt;* Rear-facing camera module&lt;p&gt;* Microphone module&lt;p&gt;* Main circuitboard, with extra USB device interface for future extensions.&lt;p&gt;It may be that calling it the first modular smartphone is taking it too far, it depends really on what you mean by the word. Although I doubt there had been a phone like this before, designed to be taken apart and reconstructed. These days most phones don&amp;#x27;t even have a removable battery.&lt;p&gt;Edit: FWIW, I think this also has benefits for software. Given the difficulties of phone hardware, if you can keep the phone going for longer, it makes a more stable base for ROM development. They also make it easy to root the device (and I think that will not void the warranty), and provide the code and instructions to build and flash their AOSP-derived OS in its entirety. They still have binary blobs unfortunately (you can read their various struggles with hardware supplier around this on their blog), but it&amp;#x27;s all a step in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;code.fairphone.com&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;fp-osos&amp;#x2F;dev&amp;#x2F;fairphone-os-build-instructions.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;code.fairphone.com&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;fp-osos&amp;#x2F;dev&amp;#x2F;fairphone-os-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Fairphone 2: world&apos;s first modular phone goes on sale</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34982724</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rsync</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been browsing their (extremely heavy, intensive) website trying to figure out &amp;quot;what are the modules&amp;quot; ... and all I can see is that there is a removable battery and that I could replace&amp;#x2F;repair parts like camera and speaker and so on.&lt;p&gt;But it looks to me that all of the actual functions of the phone are integrated into one big SoC.&lt;p&gt;That misses the entire point of a modular computing device - phone or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;I want a wireless comms module (which contains not just the wifi&amp;#x2F;bt&amp;#x2F;cellular antennas, but the chipset itself) that I can remove or &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt; disable with a switch.&lt;p&gt;I want an inputs module that contains &lt;i&gt;not just&lt;/i&gt; the mic and speaker, but their enabling circuitry so I can remove it or &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt; disable it with a switch.&lt;p&gt;I want a GPS module ... a USB ports module ... a camera module.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what a modular smartphone is all about.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing modular about a big monster (closed, telco-owned, user-hostile) SoC that contains all of the actual functions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nickpsecurity</author><text>&amp;quot;That misses the entire point of a modular computing device - phone or otherwise.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;No it doesn&amp;#x27;t. One major use of a more modular device is easier repairs. Many devices are difficult to repair to increase support or replacement revenue. A device whose modules are easy to replace is a differentiator and benefit as it let&amp;#x27;s us just use Google. :)&lt;p&gt;Of course, the modularity needs to focus on the devices that will break the most often. In mobile, I&amp;#x27;d say it&amp;#x27;s screens, buttons, speakers, mic&amp;#x27;s, connectors, and maybe batteries.</text></comment>