Gadgetory

okay Google defined modular modular employing or involving a modular modules as the basis of design or construction define module module each of a set of standardized parts or independent units that can be used to construct a more complex structure such as an item of furniture or a building or a smartphone thanks for watching now so the simplest easiest to understand definition of modular is something where all the parts can be removed or replaced so if something is completely modular all of the parts even the necessary ones can be removed or replaced if it's semi modular then some of the parts can be removed and replaced and if it's not modular that all the parts are fixed so this for example is not modular this is this is not modular this is this is not modular and this is and modular tech is usually the best kind of tech because when you can take out parts and replace them like a graphics card in a computer that also means that you can upgrade parts at any time just one piece at a time at your will which means you don't even have to wait until something's broken if you just decide you want a piece of something to be better than it is now you can buy the replacement upgrade it and just make it happen so recently we've been thinking of ways to make things in tech that haven't been modular in the past modular like smartphone and we started getting really optimistic about modular smartphones like just the whole idea of being able to swap the parts in and out at any time so let's say your phone you really like your phone but it's starting to get a little bit slow instead of buying a whole new smartphone to replace it you can just buy a new CPU module swap out that and your phone as good as new or let's say you want to take better photos and some new better optics are coming out you can swap out a camera module and you're good to go or let's say you're going on a road trip this summer swap out a bigger battery module a video about this exact topic got about 20 million views or so in a week it was called phone blocks it's made of blocks detachable blocks they are all connected to the base and the base connects everything together so this phone blocks was a crowdfunding campaign that looked like it was going to be an actually brand-new brilliant awesome idea because it kind of was I mean this was the first time people were actually considering doing a fully modular smartphone not just a removable battery or not just expandable storage but everything I mean look at the screenshot this is from the actual video and I mean it makes it look like you can replace anything the audio jack the gyroscope other sensors I mean I don't know what's in a speed module maybe my SOC but I can replace that too that seems awesome and then we heard nothing for a while like I mean we got the occasional update like oh we're still trying or whilst we're still working on this but for the most part it just stayed in concept form for a long time now it's kind of disappointing but then we got our hopes up again with project ara which was a sort of a resurfaced version of phonebloks had a lot of the same looks from phonebloks the modules that slide into a base hot swappable upgradeable parts and even a little bit of a better looking design I would say but again this was more than a year ago and it's still all concept form we never got any phones to play with just dummies of what the phone would look like so a couple weeks ago at Google i/o we got our project our update which is great we actually got some prototypes of working modular phones which is awesome to see but these were a far cry from the original concept as we kind of expected these are more like semi modular phones because now project ara doesn't let you swap you know the CPU the GPU the RAM heck even the speakers and the screen are all fixed you will be able to swap things like the camera and the battery so naturally that news is a bit disappointing to those of us who are really waiting for that idea but it's still exciting that we will see a project ara developer device by the end of this year and then a consumer device that we can buy starting next year of course this is all dependent on Google getting all these third-party manufacturers to actually make a whole bunch of different modules for us to choose from so there's an actual reason for us to try fast forward to today and we're still kind of high on this idea of modular smartphones and we've gotten devices like this LG g5 g5 by itself is a pretty good phone it's pretty decent it's not my full review of it obviously but it's a pretty good phone but its main selling point is that it's modular kinda because it has modules this would again fall under the category of stemming modular in fact the truth is the g5 is barely modular like I would hesitate to even use that word to describe it it has a couple of attachable accessories but you can't swap the memory or anything you can't swap the cameras you can't swap any sensors or ports is basically just the battery so it's sort of like a rough draft and I love LG for trying but this is like 25% of a modular phone it could have been way more awesome if there were more third-party accessories like auras planning to have and there are also rumored plans for a Motorola modular Moto X with pins on the back and accessories that can attach later this year that will also depend on how many third-party manufacturers make these accessories here's the thing though this generation is first generation of modular smartphones that we're getting now is sort of like a rough draft of those crazy ideas that we had a couple years ago there's no new tech to make these crazy new ideas happen since then so what we're doing is using old tech and sort of trying to morph it into sort of a modular thing which is pretty crazy and bold and daring but 99% of people don't really care about a Lego like build your own modular smartphone type of thing and the last 1% who do also want it to be pretty cheap both of you think about it making the ideal future-proof fully modular smartphone for us now whatever company does that would kind of be screwing themselves over in a long run when they want to introduce a new phone let's say next year no one's going to want to buy it because I'll just want to buy new modules for their own instead actually asked about this on Twitter and someone's reply was all I care about is the ability to swap out stock batteries for i/o capacity ones and adding more memory via SD cards when I need it so number one smartphone manufacturers already know that and they're kind of willing to build that into certain models as long as you pay a little extra for it and number two is that really modular barely so the truly fully modular smartphone could be the best thing that happens to the smartphone market when it does happen both for us consumers because it's going to be awesome for the environment so we don't have to buy all these new phones all the time and for geeks because it's just a dope concept but it's a long way off fingers crossed for project ara though thanks for watching I'll talk to you as the next one peace